There is a new Romanian novel partly set in Fukui, and GCS students gathered information for it in PBL.

A novel set in Fukui was published in Romania as a result of the “Second Virtual Tour of Japan: Fukui Prefecture” organized by the Japanese Cultural Center of Babe?-Boyoj University (Romania), in which the University of Fukui participated in collaboration with the Fukui Prefecture International Tourism Office On June 5, 2021.

Ms. Elena Panait, a Romanian novelist who participated as a guest in the event, which introduced tourist attractions and crafts in Fukui Prefecture, also published an article on this virtual tour on the Internet news in her hometown of Buzau, Romania, making Fukui known to many Romanian people. Many Romanians became aware of Fukui. After that, Ms. Elena suggested that she would like to write a new volume with Fukui as the setting, and Mr. Kohei Takeuchi, a fourth-year student at the School of Global and Community Studies who was sent to the Babe?-Boyoj University as an exchange student in February 2020, and other students taking a Project-Based Learning (PBL) class taught by Christopher Hennessy and Ivan Lombardi, Senior Assistant Professors.

At the beginning of this PBL course, which was conducted from April 2022 to January 2023, seven students researched tourist attractions and history of Fukui requested by Ms. Elena and provided information to her from April 2022 to May 2022. The students who joined the class really enjoyed the one-month Mr. Green Project, and the project allowed them to learn some vital skills for the class, such as basic research- and information-gathering methods as well as basic knowledge about the Fukui area, which was useful for the overall project for the year. In addition, the course instructors were able to further their teaching paradigm by incorporating the Mr. Green Project over the first month of class as a type of primer project before they began their usual year-long community support project. As a result of this one-month project, the students could learn some base information about Fukui Prefecture, provide that information to Ms. Elena Panait, and included explanation of the Mr. Green Project in their final overall 30-minute presentation in January of 2023.¡¡
We are honored that the people in Romania will get to know Fukui through this novel, and we would like to thank Ms. Elena for providing us this great opportunity.

Ms. Elena Panait