Local Experience,
National Stage

A project in the Japanese Alps has joined two activities that might otherwise remain separate: encouraging access to refill water and removing invasive species. That partnership earned the Hakuba Junior High School SDGs Circle the environment minister’s award in the Green Blue Education Forum 2026 competition.

The contest asked people aged 25 and younger who live in Japan to begin with something experienced through school, extracurricular activity or community work. Entrants then had to turn what they observed—a valued environment, a threat to it and something they could do—into a video presentation lasting no more than three minutes.

Japan’s Ministry of the Environment says 46 teams from 17 prefectures entered. Twenty-three passed the first review on August 7. A final review on August 17 produced eight recipients: one environment minister’s award, four sponsor or organizing-committee awards and three encouragement awards.

Hakuba’s Partnership Takes the Top Award

The winning presentation is titled “Passing Excitement to the Children of the Future: Hakuba’s SDGs Partnership Connecting mymizu and Invasive-Species Removal.” The official title suggests that students framed refill-water activity and habitat work as one local partnership rather than two isolated projects. The organization behind mymizu describes it as an app and platform linking reusable-bottle users with shops and facilities offering free water refills.

The result announcements do not identify the invasive species, quantify removal, give the number of refill participants or calculate avoided waste. Japan.co.jp therefore retains “mymizu” as part of the project’s published title without assigning an environmental result that the available material does not document.

Other winners also begin with tangible work. The biology group at Hyogo Prefectural Sanda Shounkan High School received the Ishizaka Industries Award for “Upcycled Crayons: Repairing the Value of Things No Longer Needed.” The school says its biology group has used material including invasive flowers, coffee grounds and bamboo to make crayons. That school description supports the activity’s background, though it is not a complete account of the competition presentation.

The Food Education Activity Team at Tochigi Prefectural Utsunomiya Hakuyo High School won the Kayama Kogyo Award for connecting food education with sustainable community building. School records document work with school-lunch menus, local produce and activities encouraging vegetable consumption. Those examples establish an ongoing local practice, not the measured effect of the award submission.

Eight Titles, Eight Ways Into the Environment

The organizer’s award notice supplies the formal presentation titles and affiliations below. English renderings are descriptive translations for readers; they should not be mistaken for official English titles. Publication of an award does not constitute Japan.co.jp verification of a project’s scientific method or claimed effect.

The list ranges from product design and ethical consumption to biodiversity, nature experience, urban fireflies, specimen preservation and plastic waste. That breadth is a feature of environmental education: entrants bring local observations into a common forum rather than being forced toward one prescribed type of climate or conservation project.

Titles alone, however, cannot reveal research design, cost, scale, durability or environmental benefit. “Upcycling” adds value to discarded material, but the label does not automatically prove that production uses fewer resources over its full life cycle. “Extinction of experience” is an established conservation-education idea, but the award notice does not publish the Obihiro team’s study design or evidence.

Five Criteria Applied to Three-Minute Videos

Each entrant submitted an entry sheet and a video of three minutes or less. The official website invited any presentation method, including picture cards, drama or slides. Applications opened May 12; the original August 3 deadline was extended to noon on August 6.

The ministry lists five judging criteria: novelty of the theme, strength of overall structure, originality of the proposal, capacity to draw others into sympathetic engagement, and clarity of expression. Those criteria define a presentation contest, not academic peer review or a government cost-benefit appraisal. A concise narrative capable of moving an audience is part of what is being judged.

The first review took place August 7 and the final review August 17. The ministry’s announcement does not publish a scoring scale, entry-by-entry totals, individual judges’ assessments or feedback for proposals not selected. A fuller assessment will require the September 6 presentations and the videos the organizer says it plans to post later.

A National Platform Is Not National Policy

The September 6 schedule begins the award presentations at 11:10 a.m. It then moves through a discussion, an Earth Co-Creator Lab segment, a poster session for youth and companies, a workshop, an audience award and an exchange session. The event is organized by a committee within the Research Organization for Experiential Learning Opportunities and co-hosted by the Ministry of the Environment. The education ministry, Japan’s UNESCO commission and Saitama Prefecture are listed as supporters.

The research organization consists of operators whose environmental learning sites have been formally recognized by prefectural governors or other authorities. The environment ministry says 21 organizations belong and that the group signed an agreement with the ministry in October 2022 under Article 20 of the Environmental Education Promotion Act to expand and improve experiential-learning opportunities.

That public connection gives youth work a national audience. It does not convert the eight entries into government policy proposals, grant commitments or certified solutions. Four awards are named for companies or the organizing committee, so the selecting institution and the nature of each award matter. The more meaningful test comes later: whether projects continue at home, whether other communities can adapt them and whether young participants gain a role in actual decisions.

Three minutes cannot solve an environmental problem. It can make a local observation portable. GBEF2026 will be most valuable if it treats the winning presentations not as finished exhibits, but as the beginning of an exchange that returns stronger ideas, partners and accountability to the communities where the work began.