東京都立小石川中等教育学校（旧ホームページ）

Research & Presentation “DIY in Australia”   Milou Tanaka

Hello, everybody. My name is Milou Tanaka and today I’ll talk about DIY in Australia. First thing first, do you know what DIY stands for? It stands for Do It Yourself. It’s fine even if you’ve never heard the word DIY because I’ll ask my clever friend! …My friend google says DIY is the activity of decorating, building, and making fixtures and repairs at home by oneself rather than employing a professional. DIY can be translated as 日曜大工, but DIY includes smaller things to make, too.
 Next, why I chose this topic, is because when I went to Australia this summer, I felt my host family made a lot of things by themselves. For example, my host mother, Debbie, made knit this large blanket, and she made this stone path to the entrance of the house. Also, my host father John built this garage over there, if you can see, and he made this fence for the hens. They called the hens “chooks”. These are some cute pictures of the chooks. As you understood, they made almost everything by themselves. So I became interested in DIY. Then I wondered, what makes Australians like DIY?
 I came up with four reasons. Better environment for tech-study, more materials around you, historical background, and free space & free time.
The first reason is better environment for tech-study. Please look at this picture. This is the tech-study room of Golden Grove High School. As you can see, it was very large. It was as three times larger than our school’s tech-study class room. More space means that they can put more types of machines. So, the y can practically study various things while they’re students. The second reason is more materials around you. If you’ve been to Australia, you must have seen these little green triangles. These protect young trees, and they’re everywhere. This shows that there’re many trees even in the city in Australia. If you collect the old branches, you can fill your good junk space in your garden like John! The third reason is historical background. Long time ago, many people from all around the world came to Australia, and the multiculturalism was born. Each people made their own culture in Australia, so I thought, maybe the DIY spirit is in their heart from their ancestors. The fourth reason is free space& free time. If you’re living in Australia, you can plant trees and put some chooks in a fence. However, life in Tokyo isn’t that easy. The trees and the cute chooks turn in to giant buildings. So you don’t have much free space. In addition, all of my host family came back before five everyday so they have much free time to spend for their hobbies than us.
Conclusion! Better environment for tech-study, more materials around you, historical background, and free space & free time. These were why Australians have the stronger DIY spirit than us.
If you have time, why don’t you Do It Yourself?          Thank you