Ishikawa Prefecture's Noto region on Thursday welcomed the first students on a school trip since it was hit by a massive earthquake in January 2024.
About 100 third-year students from a junior high school in Tokyo's Meguro Ward were the first to visit any of the six municipalities on the Noto Peninsula on a school trip since the disaster, according to the Ishikawa Prefectural Government.
The prefectural government and the city of Kanazawa, the prefecture's capital, worked to organize the school trip.
While the region's tourism industry, once a mainstay of the local economy, has not fully recovered from the disaster, an Ishikawa prefectural official said, "We hope they will learn by closely observing the progress of the reconstruction."
After being greeted by prefectural officials and others at Noto Airport on Thursday, the students visited Shunran no Sato, where many minshuku inns are located.
They were briefed on the prefecture's hydrogen energy initiative for local production for local consumption, and tasted a fish cake cooked on a hydrogen grill. The students also interacted with local farmers and experienced rice planting.
"It's a new experience because I've never had the opportunity to do rice planting in Tokyo," said student Kansuke Watanabe, 14.
During the trip through Saturday, the students will also visit Kanazawa and Kaga.
"I hope they will meet various people and cultivate the spirit of standing by disaster victims," said Tomoyuki Nishida, the school's 62-year-old principal.
In a bid to host more school trips, the prefectural government plans to improve a program designed to foster learning from the disaster, including by training storytellers.
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