Digital Agency held the Children's Kasumigaseki Tour Day in fiscal year 2026
- Published:
Digital Agency held the Children's Kasumigaseki Tour Day on July 29 and 30, 2026. The event focused on "Human-friendly digitalization" and provided four workshops for elementary school students. A total of 76 children particpated.
The workshop materials, worksheets and other resources from the event will be published as they become available. Even if you were not able to attend, we hope that you will use them for summer holiday's project and learning at home. Please see the event summary below.
- *About Children's Kasumigaseki Tour Day:
- Children's Kasumigaseki Tour Day is a joint project by several ministries and agencies in Japan. It introduces children to government work and activities. The program helps children learn about society, understand government policies, and strengthen family bonds through hands-on activities during the summer holidays.
Workshop Theme
The Digital Agency’s mission is to achieve “Human-friendly digitalization that leaves no one behind”.
The Agency works to improve web accessibility so everyone, including people with disabilities and older adults, can easily use online information and services. It also provides the Japan Dashboard and Policy Dashboard, which show data about the economy, society, and government to help everyone explore and understand this information.
During the workshops, participants learned about “Human-friendly digitalization” through hands-on activities focused on web accessibility and using data.
Workshop Activities
1. Find out the benefits of digital technology for everyone. (For lower and upper elementary school students)
Staff responsible for web accessibility served as instructors and guided participants through the following activities:
- Explore the differences between printed materials and digital content
- Experience accessibility features available on websites
- Learn how color choices improve accessibility
Using the PCs, the children change text size and screen colors, so they could see for themselves how digital accessibility features make websites easier to use.
2. Let's collect data and make a graph! (For lower elementary school students)
Staff responsible for the Japan Dashboard served as instructors and guided participants through the following activities:
- What is a dashboard?
- Collect data
- Create your own graph
- Explore a dashboard using large data
After learning about dashboards and how to make clear graphs, the children asked each other questions and created graphs based on the answers.
3. Make your own dashboard with data (For upper elementary school students)
Staff responsible for the Japan Dashboard served as instructors and guided participants through the following activities:
- What is a dashboard?
- Explore a dashboard
- Learn how to present data clearly and choose appropriate graphs
- Make your own dashboard using Power BI
- Present your dashboard
After learning about advanced concepts, such as dashboard design and selecting appropriate charts for different purposes, each participant created their own original dashboard using Microsoft Power BI.
Below is a dashboard on hot-weather data created by elementary school students using Microsoft Power BI.
It visualizes changes in very hot days (30°C or higher) and extremely hot days (35°C or higher) from 2021 to 2025. The dashboard includes comparisons by region, annual trends in Tokyo, and the proportion of each type of hot day in 2025.
Meeting Government Officials
At each session, the Minister for Digital Transformation Matsumoto, the State Minister Imaeda, the Parliamentary Vice-Minister Kawasaki, and the Chief Digital Officer Misumi joined in. They exchanged business cards with the children and took group photos together.
Minister Matsumoto told the children who joined after the workshop, "I am certain that today you have seen how dashboards can clarify information, even when data or words alone are not enough. I encourage you to use this experience to communicate more clearly in the future."
Here is some feedback from the children:
- I realized for the first time that people see things differently.
- I learned that it is easier to understand data when it is shown on a dashboard.
- I really enjoyed making animated graphs.
Wrap-up
Thank you to everyone who applied and joined the FY2026 Children's Kasumigaseki Tour Day. We would also like to thank the attendees for coming despite the summer heat.
We will post the workshop materials below as they become available. Even if you could not attend, we hope you will use them to learn more about the Digital Agency.
- Dashboard Workshop Reports (Resources for trying a similar accessibility experience at home, including workshop materials, worksheets, and a guide for parents)
- For Lower Elementary School Students (scheduled to be published around early August)
- For Upper Elementary School Students (scheduled to be published around early August)
- Children's Kasumigaseki Tour Day Event Report
- Web Accessibility Workshop and other highlights (scheduled to be published around early August)
*Note: Photos of children on this website are published with the permissions from their parents.