京都府立鳥羽高等学校

On the fifth day of Toba Global Summit 2019, we had a workshop, called Kyoto Fieldwork, a type of show and tell session, in which the participating students and teaching assistants presented several photos they took while visiting the appointed areas round the city of Kyoto. Their mission was to find something interesting that reminds us of "the Wisdom of Kyoto," accumulated wisdom of Kyoto in terms of culture and society and its people's daily lives.

The Toba students had taken a prior learning session before the Summit, in which they tried to get well prepared for the fieldwork; they collected appropriate information, translating it into English so that they could communicate well with their teaching assistants.

They walked around the city in a group of 5 or 6 people in the morning, and then in the afternoon, they had a presentation, in which each team talked about the photos they took during the fieldwork. One of the teams talked about the story of 4 foxes in Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, which was something new even to us Kyoto dwellers. This event gave us a precious opportunity to learn something new about Kyoto and look at ordinary things from a fresh angle, and it also gave an important opportunity which made the foreign university students inspired to know more about Kyoto.

After the Kyoto Fieldwork presentation, we had a closing and farewell ceremony. In the ceremony, each of the participating members expressed their feelings of gratitude in words, and shared the memories of the five days they had spent together. Before the foreign university students left, all the members wished one another with everyone's good luck, saying, "Let's get together again in either of our countries some day."

Through the five days of Global Summit 2019, Toba students were provided with various exchange programs, through which they were able to foster abilities to accept and respect different cultures, to solve problems with team members, and to communicate well with each other. I, as one of the chief organizers of the Summit, do believe that this event have undoubtedly inspired the students to realize the significance of expanding the wave of exchange, and continue working on their academic challenges on their own.

Finally I would like to thank all the people including the host families and many volunteers who have been working tirelessly over the past few days for the great success of the Summit.