REPORT

Seminar１ [Group discussion about Yamba Dam construction]March 27, 2014

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　Before starting this program, some assignments were provided to students for studying about the Yamba Dam construction by using the document that we summarized about the dam construction process.

　High school students were divided into four groups consisted, and two groups are the promotion side and other two are opposition side against the dam construction. We asked them to consider the reason why they agree or disagree with the dam construction. After having explained the point of the argument first, we divided each group into about four small groups, talked about their opinions freely and made them gather up each opinion.

　Finally we prepared the opportunity of the whole discussion in Arakawa river office of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Students presented the opinion as the group of promotion or opposition. Afterward, they discussed freely for each opinion. It was their first experience that they had to discuss on the topic without clear answer. Firstly they needed some time to understand what they should do, but their discussion had become active gradually. Finally, we could not close the whole discussion, because both boys and girls continued to say their opinions. We were impressed by their opinions pointing out the essence of the problem or our overlooking points.

(Assoc Prof. Takeyoshi CHIBANA & Assist Prof. Makiko OBANA) 【八ッ場ダム議論】

　事前に八ッ場ダムの建設経緯についてまとめた資料を配付し，これを勉強してくることを宿題として課した．四つの班は賛成派の立場で意見を述べるグループ二つと反対派の立場で意見を述べるグループ二つに事前に分けておき，それぞれがダム建設推進派，反対派のウェブ等を見つつ，推進あるいは反対するための意見を考えてきてもらった．
　当日は，最初に議論のポイントを説明した後，各班を四人程度にさらに分けて，それぞれが考えてきたことを自由に話し合い，それぞれの意見を各班でまとめてもらった．最後に，荒川下流河川事務所にて全体討論の場を設け，ダム建設推進派・反対派という立場からの班としての意見をそれぞれ発表してもらい，それについての自分たちが考える意見を自由に議論してもらった．
　答えのない問いかけについて，自分の意見をまとめて，討論するという経験は初めてだったということで，かなり苦労したようだったが，徐々に議論が活発になって来て，最後の全体討論は男女問わずに意見が出続け，本質を突いた意見や，これまで見落としていた新たな視点に感銘を受けた企画となった．

（准教授　知花武佳，特任助教　尾花まき子（現在　名古屋大学　助教））

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