In this article, lives which coexist with nature and do not aim to gain material profit were examined interdisciplinarily from various perspectives by using the concept of minor subsistence.

   We observed the life of a man who lived such a life and conducted interviews with him for three years. He was eighty-five years old and lived in Yura, Miyazu City, Kyoto, Japan. Through this research, we considered how “lives coexisting with nature” and “lives of self-reliance” were led in modern society.

   After the research, we extracted his principles for everyday life and made a schematic. The schematic shows three elements concerning his way of living, seven other elements concerning his way of thinking, and five other elements concerning his behaviour. At the core of his everyday life, three other elements existed.

   His way of living, which is one of independence and self-reliance, provides us with a clue on how to achieve a sustainable society in coexistence with the natural environment. The schematic can be used as one of the guides for researches in other places.

  Calcium is an essential mineral for the human body, although the Japanese only ingest it in a small amount. We baked butter cake samples after adding eggshell powder, which is a rich source of calcium, to rice flour. The ingredients of the cake were 100 g each of rice flour, eggs, granulated sugar and butter, and 2.8 g of baking powder, the rice flour containing 0％-8％ of eggshell powder. We observed the cut surface and measured the weight, volume, moisture content, texture and structure to examine the quality of the cakes. We also conducted a sensory evaluation of the taste. A 30-g cake with 4％ eggshell powder contained 140 mg of calcium, while an 8％ mixture contained 266 mg of calcium which is 40％ of the recommended daily dietary requirement for an adult. The batter of the cake samples containing more than 2％ of eggshell powder had a lower specific gravity, although having a higher cubic volume and specific volume than the samples containing less. The hardness and cohesiveness of the cake samples containing 2％ and 4％ of eggshell powder were low (p＜0.05), while 4％ of eggshell powder gave a well-baked cake, and 8％ was evaluated to have a good taste in the sensory test. Adding eggshell powder to the cake ingredients proved effective for increasing the calcium intake.

  The purpose of this study is to clarify Home Economics education in a primary and a lower secondary school in Lower Saxony, Germany.

   The study is based on a survey of the Home Economics curriculum and schoolbooks, and interviews with teachers and students during a visit to Lower Saxony in February 2016.

   The results were as follows:

   1. Home Economics has been positioned in lower secondary schools, but is not compulsory, whereas textile production has been positioned in primary and lower secondary schools as a compulsory subject.

   2. Five areas, that is to say, “Meal preparation”, “Nutrition and Health”, “Determination of Food Quality and Consumption,” “Lifestyle and Food Culture,” “Economy, Ecology and Society” make up the core curriculum of Home Economics. In the Home Economics classes the school has mainly provided cooking practice, and education regarding household management, as well as the importance of diet in our daily lives.

   3. Five areas, “Technology and Design of Clothing in Our Daily Lives”, “Using a Sewing Machine”, “Clothing in a Cultural Context”, “Mode”, “Housing” make up the core curriculum of textile production in the lower secondary school , and “Knowing”, “Forming”, “Historical and Cultural Context of Textile Production” are in the core curriculum of textile production in the primary school. Both schools have provided practical training to encourage the joy of making something using cloth and yarn in the textile production classes.