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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Illegal parking

Illegal parking

Participant

Risa She rides bicycle everyday to go to her school.
Momoko She runs a shop and her husband works at a parking area.
Keiko She has parties at city hall and she goes there by scooter and parks it on street.
Mickey He is a town officer and representatives of town office about this issue
Yoshiko She is a town officer, too.

Situation and opinions
They are in trouble with illegal parking in this town.
Momoko is bothered by illegal-parking bicycles in front of her shop. So she hopes all drivers to park their vehicles at right place.
Keiko, however, she wants to go on parking on street because she goes home late at night. Most parking spaces don’t open till late at night..
It is true that there are few spaces to park vehicles opening till at night.
So they focused on building up some new parking areas opening 24 hours.
But the town has no money to build them and employ guardsman for them.
Risa gave an idea that people who ride their vehicle should pay for their parking fee.
But how much should they pay for parking?
Someone suggested 300 yen, but other said it was expensive.
It looks nice idea that making new parking and user pay fee for their vehicle.


Consensus
They will make a new parking area in city hall and users should pay 100 yen as fee.
And if they use there over 24 hours, they should pay other penalty.

Should we give the voting right to 16 people?

Should we give the voting right to 16 people?

Participant
Agree
Koyama mayor is going to carry the change up in a year.
Ryuji is 20 and was a fire fighter..
Takashi is a teacher at a high school.

Disagree
Mio is 16 and go to high school.
Chikako is 20 and a University student.

The city held a coming of age celebration on January 9th,
However the attendants behave so rudely to shout loudly.
It seemed childish and shameful. They were drinking alcohols and smoked cigarette during the ceremony.
So the city plan to lower the age of right of voting and the city mayor hope new adults to have maturity.
Whether the age is suitable for voting or not is a topic.

Opinion from agree side
Takashi treats bad boys in his school and he was concerned about them. So he
Young men have clear thinking and sense.
There are people who work even they were sixteen.
Youngness and immatureness can’t be a reason why they can’t vote.
18 years old teenagers were more sensible and reasonable to vote.

Opinion from disagree side
People 16 years old are too young to decide voting because they might not be so mutual about society and politics.
Most of 16 years old agers are under their parents’ protection.
They can’t think they are adult yet.


Consensus
The city is going to lower the age of voting to 18 three years later.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

shoud we bring cell phone to children?

Should we bring cell phone to children when they go to school?

Participant

Disagree
Bertram York
Bob
Aiko
Agree
Akiko
Yukino


Shino is the doctor who researches the relationship between tools and human.
Bob is a teacher of high school.
Aiko is a student in 3rd grade at junior high school.
Akiko is s wife and she has two children, one is in high school and another is in junior high school.
Yukino is a high school student. She began to have cell phone after entering high school.


All public schools in this town allow students to bring cell phone to school.
At elementary school and junior high school, teachers gather their cell phones in the morning.
However parents feel displeasing for this action.
Some students don’t pass it to teacher and some of them use it even during class.
This makes teacher annoying so much.


There are some opinions about cell phone.
Benefits
Bringing cell phones can help find missing or lost children on way home. Some cell phones include GPS system that indicates the location of the phone. This can be useful in locating a child who becomes lost in a crowd
Negative
Cell phones help us to communicate without talking; however, we depend on them too much. People prefer text to talking nowadays.

Request
Children can’t use it correctly, so parents want teacher to teach how to use it.



I think this group didn’t have clear theme and back ground.
So it is little difficult for me to understand what they want to do at first.
But all people in this group speak loudly, so I could listen to them easily.

Consensus
High school student are allowed to bring their cell phone to school and it is banned do so for student in elementary and junior high school.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Elimination and Consolidation of Elementary School

Participation
Disagree
Makiko. an ex-student
Kenta  an ex-student
Agree
Yuri. Staff of city hall
Motoko An architect
Jun. A teacher of Sakura elementary school



This town has two elementary schools, Sakura and Momiji.
Sakura elementary school is 40 years old and 50 students ho there.
On the other hand, Momiji elementary school is 10 years and 90 students go there.
The distance between two schools takes 1 hour on foot.

Comparing these two elementary school, Momiji elementary school is newer and safer.
And Momiji elementary school has more students than Sakura elementary school.
Besides, students going to Sakura elementary school are decreasing.


Opinion from disagree side
Elderly people feel pleasure when they talk with children, so they feel lonely without elementary school.
Mai hopes to keep and reuse Sakura elementary school for people if it is broken. If it were reused like memorial exhibition, people can remember memories
Kenta claimed that old people were invited to events held at Sakura elementary school. So if we lose it, it’s natural that we lose these events, too. It’s so sad.



Opinion from agree side
Yuri said that Sakura is too old, so parents should worry about earthquake resistance. Moreover, she thinks that children have to compete on sports (ex. Basketball, volleyball or soccer) and it need 25 students at least. It’s important to change class to make new friends. This can make children’s life more enjoyable. Yuri argued that city offer school bus for students in Sakura’s area.
Motoko stated Japan has a lot of natural disasters. We don’t know when they happen, so it’s dangerous to study at Sakura elementary school. If you want to rebuild it, it must cost too much.
Jun turn his attention to study. Contents of lesson are same, so it’s effective to teach at the same time. Besides, students will have competitive spirits because they can meet new smart friends.
Kenta said old people were invited to events held at Sakura elementary school.
So if we lose it, it’s natural that we lose these events, too.






Consensus
Combine two schools into one and use school bus for Sakura elementary.
Use school bus for students in Sakura’s area. City serves it for free.
We held festival every year at both areas mutually.
We use Sakura elementary school as a memorial exhibition room.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Should we bury hot spring?

Participant
Yu. Disagree
Tatsuo. Disagree
Masahiro. Disagree
Chiaki. Agree
Yoshiko. Agree


Yu has a child and worries about safety.

Tatsuo lives in front of hot spring so he worries so much.

Chiaki want to gather people in this town and make this town lively.

Yoshiko is farmer.


Chiaki and Yoshiko want to gather people at this town and make town lively and industry more active.
So they want to bury hot spring source and make it famous.

But it has some trouble to bury hot spring.
At first, some civic lost their houses. To bury hot spring, surroundings are troublesome.
So we have to break them. But people who live around hot spring source don’t feel good to break their house. They have attachment for their house and area.
Tatsuo lives in front of hot spring source long time, so he wants to live there ever after.



Consensus is bury hot spring 20 years after from now.

In my opinion, the town will be better if it has hot spring to gather people and make town active.
If many people come to this town, people there can enjoy even the people who lost their house because people can have a chance to communicate with a lot of people.
It's true that it' dangerous to bury hot spring, but there are various way to escape from danger.

Instead of burying hot spring resource, the town should compensate for the people who lost their house.
For example, if it give free ticket of bathing, they will be glad. 

Should we kill birds to decrease the number of them?

Should we kill birds to decrease the number of them?


This town is in trouble with too many birds.
There are a lot of its drops on the street and they eat house garbage so town become dirty.
To solve this problem, they hold a town meeting.


Participant
Yoshiyuki disagree
Kiku disagree
Yasuo agree
Yuri agree
Etsuko agree


Yoshiyuki likes watching birds very much.

Kiku is a old single lady. If she is with birds, she doesn't feel lonely.

Yasuo is a farmer. He is in trouble because his vegetable are eaten and get damage for bacteria.

Yuri always irritates by the noise of birds.

Etsuko is in trouble with bird’s drops.


There are some ideas to avoid trouble with too many birds.

*To reduce many birds, we kill them with drugs, but it costs too much and people who disagree don’t want to kill birds.
*Not to increase more birds, we should take off their nest, but who can do it? There are few people who know where the nests are, and how to remove their nest. Another idea is correcting new eggs. We reduce newborn birds, not adult birds.
*To drive out birds from this town, we put machine making noise which birds hate or make new place where birds can live, not this town.



I agree with taking away bird's eggs from their nest to reduce newborn birds.
I don't like killing animal.
I think this way is easiest of all ideas.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Should we keep on illuminating?

Saving electricity
Should we keep on illuminating?

Participant
John   agree
Manami agree
Minami agree
Tomomi disagree
Sayaka disagree


John is an electricity designer and he wants to make people feel lonely happy.
He thinks city become lively if there are illumination and it lead positive economic.
His nice opinion is replacing LED light from light bulb because LED light doesn’t need 75 % electricity and we can use it long time compared with bulb light
At first, it costs high, but it saves a lot of money in a long run.

Manami works at a restaurant in a city center and it is illuminated.

Minami enjoys illuminations around the city and she thinks that they bring us feeling coming winter, so if we don’t have them, our life becomes lifeless.

Tomomi works at city hall in Tohoku.
She experienced big earth quake so she has a seriouse trouble with electricity.
So She wants people to save electricity as much as possible.
Instead of illuminating,we should enjoy winter another way like a home party.

Sayaka is a student and she went to Tohoku as a volunteer stuff.
She watched a lot of trouble with her own eyes.