Kyoto Municipal Center for Promotion of Environment Protection

Highlight

Everyone from toddlers up can enjoy the feel of wood in the “wooden toy plaza”

Learning about practical ecology in daily life in the city that sealed the “Kyoto Protocol”

This center was opened in 2002 to commemorate and spread the message of the Third Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP3) held in Kyoto. From top to bottom, the center is filled with hands-on taster exhibits to “look at”, “touch”, and “sense”, enabling visitors to playfully learn about environmental problems on a worldwide scale, such as global warming, as well as those that pick up on the small pieces of wisdom that help the environment, such as cutting back on garbage output in our daily lives.
In the exhibit corners on the 1st and 2nd floors, visitors can learn about the Kyoto way of dealing with environmental issues via hands-on experiencing type exhibits. And, on the 3rd floor, there is an environment library corner with picture books, specialist texts and visuals as well as a wooden toy plaza, communication space and rental event space. On the roof, there is a field and a biotope for visitors to learn about how we should relate to nature. Finally, the entire building is an ecological exhibit where the installed solar, wind-power, rainwater utilization equipment, high-level external wall insulation are on display to show visitors the numerous ingenious methods in which ecology can be put into to practice, including how energy can be saved and natural materials can be put to use.
Visitors also can make use of volunteer ecology guides and environment study programs to get more out of the center.