IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2015) 6-1

Research article
erd

Educational Benefits of Green Tourism School Trips inJapanYAMAMOTO TADAO*
Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
Email: tady@env.agr.hokudai.ac.jp
Received 24 December 2014

Accepted 6 May 2015(*Corresponding Author)

Abstract In Japan, green tourism (rural tourism) continues to grow in popularity. This formof tourism is expected to increase the nation’s interest in agriculture and promote moreinteractions between urban and rural people. In Hokkaido, school trips that include handson agricultural activities are becoming widely accepted as a new type of green tourism.
However, despite wide acceptance, the effects of these trips and related hands-on activities
have not been sufficiently evaluated. In this research, the author investigated theeducational benefits of school-trip-style green tourism. Surveys were conducted on students
from three high schools (n = 597 students) after they had participated in school trips in2013. The surveys showed that students without any past experience in agriculture tended
to have stronger positive feelings towards agricultural activities and farmers. In addition,students also became more interested in becoming farmers in the future. Moreover, becauseof such visits, the students showed increased interest in food and crops. However, theirawareness of agricultural water-use facilities, management organization, and themultifunctional benefits of agriculture was low; this lack of awareness was not related toprevious agricultural experience. Therefore, to understand the fundamental benefits ofagriculture, simple hands-on activities are not enough. In addition, the program must
include lectures that explicitly demonstrate how agriculture preserves natural resources,
contributes to a green society, and feeds the nation.
Keywords green tourism, questionnaire research, agricultural experience, school trip

INTRODUCTION
In Japan, green tourism (GT) has been recently promoted and tested as a way to help revitalize
rural communities and stimulate interactions between urban and rural people. Green tourism is also
called rural tourism, agro-tourism, or ecotourism. Over the current decade, the number of facilities
involved in rural tourism has doubled in Hokkaido, which is in the northern part of Japan. This
increase is especially prominent in the Kamikawa and Sorachi districts. The increase in the numberof facilities is mainly due to increase in the number of visits to farms, farm homesteads, and otheragricultural activities. This increased interest correlates with increases in the number of school trips
to agricultural areas that were triggered by the Children’s Rural Area Interaction Project (2008–)
and the Integrated Study in Schooling (2004–) (Ikegami, 2003, Sawauchi et al., 2009). The
diffusion of GT is believed to be contributing to growing public interest in agriculture and ruralareas. Green tourism is also believed to be improving public understanding of land improvement
projects because young people who have had experiences in rural areas will be part of the next
generation that will implement policies for managing those areas. Therefore, it is important for us
to understand how participants are affected by school trips to rural and agricultural areas.
However, there have been few evaluations of the effects of GT on participants or of whether
current GT programs provide an adequate educational experience. Many previous studies of GT
have been confined to its institution worldwide or to the possibility of using GT as a marketingstrategy for activating interest in local agriculture. Moreover, few studies have been performed onany impact that GT may have on visitor awareness, appreciation, or understanding of agriculturalproblems. A few studies of using agricultural visits as educational platforms have involvedⒸ ISERD

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elementary students in the research (Yamada, 2006, 2008), and a few studies were intended forhigh school students. In analyzing student and farmer attitudes to rural tourism with agriculturalactivities, Kuraoka et al. (2009) found that many students reported positive reactions to theirinteractions with farmers and to farmer lifestyles. Sawauchi et al. (2009) surveyed high school
students who had participated in school trips with agricultural activities; their findings showed thatstudents tended to appreciate the connections with nature and the influence on social life provided
by the agricultural experience. These studies serve as the theoretical foundation for this study.
The purpose of this study is to determine how school trips with agricultural activities affectstudents awareness towards agriculture and whether such trips affect students attitude towards ruralcommunities.
METHODOLOGY
The author surveyed second-grade high school students in ordinary senior high school “A” inTokyo and in ordinary senior high schools “B” and “C” in Hiroshima Prefecture. These students
were participants in school trips with agricultural activities in Naganuma Town, Hokkaido
Prefecture. Each set of students participated in agricultural activities over three days and two nightsfrom September to October in 2013. For students from the A and C high schools, questionnaires
were returned within one week after their trip. For students in the B high school, the questionnaires
were collected soon after their visit. Naganuma Town has participated in these school trips for a
decade, and each school has participated for over two years.
The questionnaires addressed three main issues: (a) awareness of land improvement and water
management facilities, (b) satisfaction with the school trip experience, and (c) educational
evaluation after the experience. Questions addressing parts (b) and (c) were based on previous
studies by Yamada (2006) and Sawauchi et al (2009). Statistical analyses of student responses wereperformed using Microsoft Excel and statistics software R.
Table 1 Respondent attributes
Question
GenderResponses(n=596)

Farmland situation around theresidence(n=596)
Are your family or relatives
farmer?
(n=594)
Did you have an agriculturalexperience before this schooltrip?
(n=597)
When have you experienced
agriculture at first?
(multiple answers allowed)(n=373)
Have you ever stayed in farmer
house for trip?
(n=597)

No existence
204 (34.2)

Before entering
elementary school81 (21.7)

Male
268 (45.0)
In patches
305 (51.2)
Yes
243 (40.9)

Female328 (55.0)
Spreading around87 (14.6)
No
351 (59.1)

Yes
373 (62.5)

No
224 (37.5)

Elementary schooldays
304 (81.5)

Junior high school days
130 (34.9)

Yes
171 (28.6)

No
426 (71.4)(n: valid respondents number, The values in parentheses mean % of valid responses)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Respondent Attributes
More than 50% of respondents reported at least partial farmland near their residences, while about
35% stated that there was no farmland near their residences. About 40% of the students were in aⒸ ISERD121

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family of farmers or had relatives who were farmers. Almost 60% of students had had an
agricultural experience before this school trip, and many of them had experiences in theirelementary schools. About 70% of respondents had not stayed overnight in a farmhouse. Theresults are summarized in Table 1.
Awareness of Land Improvement District and its Facilities
Regarding awareness of land improvement districts, agricultural water-use facilities, andagricultural multi-functionality, more than 85% of the students answered they don’t know (Fig. 1).
Since the survey was carried out after the agricultural visit, the author presume that students did notreceive specific instruction about these issues during trip preparation or during the agricultural visit
itself.
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Do you know "Land Improvement
district"?
Do you know spefifically land
improvement facilities and agricultural
water management facilities?
Do you know multifunction that agriculture
and agricultural water management system
have?
Yes

I have heard of it

I know a bitNoFig. 1 Survey results for student awareness of land improvement district and its facilities
Impression of the Tour
Table 2 shows the results concerning impressions about the agricultural experience and staying in
farmhouses. The table clearly shows that most students had positive interactions with the farmers
and they were impressed by the surrounding landscape. As to the particular agricultural activities,
more than 60% of the students participated in harvesting, about 41% did other work, and about
35% did weeding. These percentages sum to more than 100% because many students performed
more than one activity. Many of the other-work activities involved shipping, such as sorting andpacking associated with the harvest season during which the visits were done. Majority students
reported that their most memorable activity was spending time with the host farmers; they wereless affected by the agricultural activities or with looking at the landscape.
Educational Effects of Agricultural Activities
Table 3 shows the results for educational effects of the agricultural activities. Students were asked
to rate their degree of change in awareness at one of five levels via one of these possible responses:agree (5), agree a little (4), neither agree or disagree (3), disagree a little (2), or disagree (1). The
table gives the average of these possibilities for each question. Moreover, for each question, a large
average score corresponds to a large change in awareness. As in previous studies (Yamada, 2008,
Kurauchi, 2009), the questions were divided into three categories: connections with nature, mental
attitudes, and connections with social life.
For many questions, the average scores fell between 3.0 and 4.0; this indicates that the school
trips generally had a positive influence on the mental attitudes of the students. These results are
generally corresponding to those in a previous study. In this study, there were four questions that
had scores above 4.0, while in the previous study, less than six had scores above 4.0. Scores wereless than 4.0 for the following two questions: “you felt a joy or pleasure to take harvests” and “youⒸ ISERD122

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became to mind an importance of cooperation and partnership.” But in the previous study, the samequestions had scores above 4.0.
For the question “you felt a joy or pleasure to take harvests,” responses of “agree” weresegregated by high school as follows: about 50% in high school A, about 40% in B, and less than
30% in C. These differences between schools caused the smaller average compared to the previousresults. These differences might be related to the relative amounts of time students in each school
actually spent in harvesting. Comparing the different farming activities, the ratios of students that
did harvesting were in the order A > C > B. So participation in harvesting was not lower in highschool C. However, overall work times were generally shorter for students in school C. In
particular, for students in school C, 51% of the work time was within two hours. But for students inschools A and B, only 30% of the work time was within two hours (Table 4 ).
For the question “you became to mind an importance of cooperation and partnership,” 70% of
the students in each school answered “agree” or “agree a little.” However, for high school C, thepercentage of “agree” was lower than those for the other two schools. This explains the smaller
average score for this question. Responses to the two questions, “you became to mind an
importance of cooperation and partnership” and “you felt a joy or pleasure to take harvests” had ahigher correlation (0.695) than other relations. So, although we anticipated that the amounts ofwork time would influence the responses to these two questions (“mind of cooperation andpartnership” and “joy or pleasure to harvesting”), correlations were low between work time and theresponses.
Table 2 Impressions of agricultural activities and living in a farmhouse
Question
Could you enjoy theinteraction with farmers inthis school trip?
Could you enjoy the rurallandscape in this school
trip?
Which kinds of farming
work did you do ?
(Multiple answers
allowed)not at alla littleneither

quite a lot

very much10(1.7%)8(1.3%)

13(2.2%)98(16.4%)

467(78.2%)

7(1.2%)

13(2.2%)16(2.7%)132(22.1%)

429(71.9%)

seedingtransplantation

weeding

harvestingothers17(2.8%)6(1.0%)

206(34.5%)

353(59.1%)

247(41.4%)

Which matters do you
stand out in your memoryin this school trip?
(Multiple answers
allowed)life in farmers
house such as
meal or sleep

talking andspending alongwith host farmer

spendingdays along
withfriends

agriculturalexperiences

viewing ofrurallandscape319(53.4%)

367(61.5%)

309(51.8%)

284(47.6%)

211(35.3%)

Only one question had a score below 3.0:“you’d like to become a farmer in the future.”
Responses to this question for each high school were 2.72 in school A, 3.16 in B, and 2.46 in C.
The average for the three schools was 2.72 (Table 3). Schools B and C are in the same prefecture. It
is somehow expected that more local students would prefer to become farmers than urban students
but results show that, even in the same prefecture, attitudes towards employment differ greatly.
Correlations were comparatively higher between “you’d like to become a farmer in the future” andeach of these questions: “mind to care about nature and creature grew up,” “your knowledge andunderstanding to food and crops deepened,” and “your knowledge to agriculture deepened.” Thismeans that more activities in agricultural programs like these have the potential to encourage
certain students to engage in farming in the future.
Compared to other relations, correlations were lower between respondent attributes andperceived educational benefits of the visits. This suggests that earlier agricultural experiences andstudent residential environments were not direct factors in changing students attitudes towards
agricultural activities. This indicates the possibility that future education can improve students
attitudes towards agriculture.
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Table 3 Educational effects of school trip with agricultural activities
Question
(a)

(b)

(c)

Connection with nature
you felt a joy or pleasure to take harvests.
mind to care about foods grew up.
mind to care about nature and creature grew up.
you have become interested in food and crops.
you have become interested in nature and creature.
your knowledge and understanding to food and crops deepened.
you developed abilities of observation and scientific knowledge tonature and creature.
Mental phase
you became to be cheerful and vigorous person.
you are able to get widly sense of value.
your sensibility was cultivated.
Aggressiveness and independence grew up.
you became to be even-tempered person.
you became to be a patient person.
your expressiveness improved.
your imagination faculty improved.
Connection with social life
you understood an importance of sweating with effort.
you became to mind an importance of cooperation and partnership.
you'd like to live in this region.
you became interested in agriculture.
your knowledge to agriculture deepened.
you have thought seriously about your future (e.g., occupation ).
your knowledge to region you stayed in deepened.
you'd like to become a farmer in the future.

Score

Previous
Score*

3.95
4.29
4.10
4.03
3.78
3.77

4.46
4.18
4.17
4.02
3.84
3.61

3.46

3.22

3.86
3.67
3.30
3.69
3.46
3.58
3.49
3.43

3.79
3.71
3.49
3.42
3.38
3.33
3.28
3.28

4.09
3.95
3.63
3.73
3.73
3.683.72
2.72
3.78

4.27
4.21
3.69
3.63
3.63
3.60
3.52
2.46
3.84

note：Score means the average point of the following answer.
5=Agree, 4=Agree a little, 3=Neither agree nor disagree, 2=Disagree a little, 1=Disagree.
*Quoted from Sawauchi et al.（2009）

Table 4 Working time in a day
SchoolABC

0-1
6.1%
5.4%
18.0%

How many hours did you work in a day? (average)
1-2
2-3
3-4
25.0%
38.3%
17.9%
21.8%
22.4%
19.7%
33.2%
21.2%
17.6%

4-5
6.6%
17.0%
6.8%

Over 5( hr)
6.1%13.6%
3.2%

CONCLUSION
In this study, surveys were administered to high school students who had participated in school
trips to farms in rural areas. During the trips, students interacted with farmers and their families andengaged in agricultural activities. The surveys were designed to measure the educational benefits inparticular agricultural, provided by the trips. The results show that agricultural activities during thetrips were effective in increasing students interests in agriculture, particularly for those students
who had had no previous exposure to farming. These results were generally corresponding to thosein a previous study. The author expected that students attitudes would depend on their place ofresidence and on earlier agricultural experience; however, no such tendency was exhibited in thisstudy. Although many students had strong positive reactions to their time spent with farmers, thestudents had little awareness of land improvement policies that support rural agriculture or of themultifunctional effects of agriculture on society. To deepen students awareness of these issues, notⒸ ISERD124

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only should students participate in agricultural activities, but farmers should also explain the role ofland improvement and the many benefits agriculture provides to society.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank Naganuma Town which supported this research and each school
cooperated with questionnaire research.
REFERENCES
Ikegami, K. 2003. Agricultural education in elementary education, agriculture/ agricultural education/diffusion of agriculture (editorial supervisor; Soda O.). Rural Culture Association Japan, 399-461.
Kuraoka, K., Sawauchi, D., Yamamoto, T., Sajiki, T. and Toguchi, T. 2009. An analysis on agriculturalexperiences of a school trip. The Review of Agricultural Economics, 64,105-111.
Sawauchi, D., Kuraokaoa, K., Sajiki, T., Toguchi, T. and Yamamoto, T. 2009. Evaluation of high school
students’ agricultural experiences during a school trip, Journal of Rural Problems, 45 (1), 133-136.
Yamada, I. 2006. A tool of planning programs of agricultural experience for children based on the relation
between way of programs and educational effects. Technical Report of the National Institute for RuralEngineering, 204, 23-31.
Yamada, I. 2008. The effects of agricultural experience on the emotion and interest of children: A
comparative study of three urban primary schools, Journal of Rural Problems, 170, 326-336.

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