The “Fukushima Gaku College” program, hosted by the Hiroshi Kainuma Laboratory at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, The University of Tokyo, has won the Good Design Award 2025. Now in its fourth year, Fukushima Gaku College is an educational and social collaboration program that practices inquiry-based learning and STEAM education for junior high and high school students across Japan.It is currently being implemented as a commissioned research project by the Fukushima International Research and Education Organization (F-REI, Namie Town, Fukushima Prefecture), co-hosted by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum (Futaba Town, Fukushima Prefecture).

The program offered by Fukushima Gaku College is diverse, and seeks new possibilities for inquiry-based learning and STEAM education through collaboration between junior high, high school, and university levels. Courses offered have included a “Research Course” and “Fieldwork.” This award was received for the “Expression Course.”

The Expression Course provides a bidirectional learning experience under the theme “Fukushima and Me.” It simultaneously deepens understanding of a region facing complex challenges while fostering self-understanding. Through expression in diverse media, students learn the essence and significance of expression and dialogue, including the frustration of “not being understood.” By repeatedly engaging in creative work and dialogic appreciation, the program cultivates the ability to accept diverse perspectives and the power of self-expression (the ability to communicate).

Under the direction of Yuki Kikuchi (copywriter) as Program Director, and featuring guest lecturers such as “DJ Misoshiru & MC Gohan” (musician) and Tatsuya Kinoshita (poet), participants created individual works by moving fluidly across diverse media—including landscape, display, text, voice, sound, video, and space—exploring the boundaries between the concrete and the abstract, the self and the other.

The program has achieved remarkable outcomes, including traveling exhibitions in Fukushima and Tokyo, participation and awards in external competitions, and features on participants’ works in major outlets such as The Asahi Shimbun’s “People” column, The Nikkei’s “Tanka” section, and NHK World.

The evaluation comments from the judging committee were as follows:

“This is a program in which junior high and high school students, who have grown up in the period of over 14 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake, confront the land of Fukushima, engage deeply with their own past, present, and future, as well as their relationships with others, and connect these experiences to expression. The careful process of self-reflection and refining that into words and expressions is particularly noteworthy, and we were strongly impressed by the resilience and flexibility of the students’ words that emerge from it. It is extremely encouraging that children are acquiring this power of learning and expression in Fukushima, a place of unforgettable experience for us. At the same time, this suggests that the careful accumulation of dialogue between self and others, and between the land and oneself, offers a universal and irreplaceable learning experience for children living anywhere.”