The effectiveness of utilizing newly developed educational method: A new educational tools to increase the risk perception

Disaster reduction awareness related activities in tsunami affected areas in Miyagi prefecture started since 2013. In 2014, these activities were positioning as science delivery on natural disaster science so that is easy to... [ view full abstract ]

Disaster reduction awareness related activities in tsunami affected areas in Miyagi prefecture started since 2013. In 2014, these activities were positioning as science delivery on natural disaster science so that is easy to understand for 10-11 years old children. This research has objective to train cognitive ability, judgment and crisis avoidance behavior using a combination of existing educational tools and newly developed two types of tool. Risk perception can be observed from questionnaires conducted before, right after and one month after the activities. This year, we were able to shorten the section, where natural hazard mechanisms and current disaster situations are explained, by 10 minutes. As a result, the time was then used towards group work activities. In the second half, a game that allowed participants to view images during a disaster while utilizing a stamp game that allows them to consider and locate dangerous areas at home what kind of actions to take in the next disaster. The through the use of colors, the design of the stamp was devised to identify actions that promote self-resiliency, mutual assistance, and public assistance. These categories allowed participants to understand that there are a variety of approaches, deepen the understanding of actions that could help each other, and to envision and stimulate a disaster event that led to such actions. These actions become real experiences, knowledge, and contributes to improved judgment, leading to a deeper understanding of actions towards disaster risk reduction. In a question “It is important for family to decide what to prepare against natural disasters”, number of children who strongly agreed increased from 61.0% to 78.0% right after the activity and remained 72.1% after one month. This could be the effect of the combined science delivery class and educational tool. In a question “All family members will be safe by having discussion on disaster preparation in the family”, number of children who strongly agreed increased from 43.3% to 62.4% right after the activity and remained 47.9% after one month. In the future, this kind of educational activities will be continued to increase cognitive ability, judgment and crisis avoidance. Also in the future, the method that let children think of how to prepare against disaster will be repeatedly conduct. Risk perception of children will be increased by the proposed learning method on disaster reduction awareness.