2018 Volume 13 Issue 1 Pages 158-163
The Environmental Map Contest, started in Asahikawa in 1991, has developed as the only map contest of national or international significance held in Japan. Its achievements are diverse, including those in environmental education, geography education, map education, lifelong learning, etc. This paper focuses on those achievements of the environmental map contest closely related to “outreach,” particularly in relation to the unreplaceable roles played by Hokkaido University of Education Research Center for Lifelong Learning and its yearly journal Reports of the HUE Research Center for Lifelong Learning, and through collaboration with individuals involved in various sectors. It has been reconfirmed that the activities related to this map contest offer numerous suggestions for the promotion of university outreach or extension activities. It should be stressed that a network of primary, secondary, and higher education with support from government agencies and the private sector and centered at a university has driven cooperation and co-creation efforts among science, education, and society. Those efforts have resulted in the largest educational map contest in Japan, creating a model of outreach by a university and science circles.
