Phila-Nipponica Project 2012

Phila-Nipponica is intended to educate “beginners” about Japan, offering a broad base of history and culture in preparation for a study-tour of Japan, with a focus on: Recovering Japan: Preparing Philadelphia Area Educators to Teach about Japan as It Responds to the Disasters of 2011.

We are currently seeking applications from social studies, science, and humanities teachers in middle and high schools who have a strong interest in developing or enhancing a Japan studies program.

Project activities include:

• Three intensive all-day Saturday seminars (March 3, April 14, and May 12) with scholars on the University of Pennsylvania campus.
• A 17-day study tour of Japan in June–July 2012. Tentative dates are June 22–July 9. You must be available all of this period.
• Three mandatory curriculum implementation sessions in Fall 2012, with a final presentation of your Japan teaching plan.

A powerpoint describing different locations that the group will visit can be found here.

The application can be found here.

The application deadline is February 10, 2012.

Please mail or fax your application to:
Melissa Jen DiFrancesco, Assistant Director
Center for East Asian Studies
255 S. 36th Street
642 Williams Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104–6305
Fax: 215.573.2561
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General Information about the Project

For the last decade the University of Pennsylvania and the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia have partnered successfully with the US–Japan Foundation in the Phila-Nipponica Project, preparing educators in our area's schools to convey knowledge and understanding of Japan to their students and colleagues. We have prepared a total of 120 teachers in the introductory Phila-Nipponica projects: 20 teachers in each of six years intensively studied Japan during seminars conducted by Penn faculty and in faculty-led study-tours of Japan .

The results from these efforts over the course of the decade are both widespread and deep in impact. By a conservative calculation, the total number of students who have been taught about Japan in the Greater Philadelphia area as a result of the Phila-Nipponica Project is about 30,000. The depth of the outcome is measured in the classes, after-school clubs, and special inter-school projects that are now devoted to the study of Japan, and the on-going relationships that have been established between American and Japanese schools and students.