Hamilton and Somerville thus offer insights into the role of aesthetics and art in volcanic communication, and the nature of volcanology as a science (Sigurdsson 1999; Von Der Thüsen 2003). Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, these mechanisms of representing volcanic landscapes have been further transformed, notably through the rise and expansion of cyber and digital technologies. Epistemically, the making of knowledge has used the middle-ground between art and science to garner and further the immersive, virtual and multi-perspectival exploration of the landscapes that Hamilton and Somerville previously conveyed.

In what follows, we illustrate, through the expeditions of Hamilton and Somerville, how aesthetics (in the form of an embodied, sensuous encounter with Nature) and art (in the form of imaginative visualisations of Nature), were a crucial part of knowledge-making within volcanology. Firstly, we outline the work of Hamilton, and his emphasis upon diligent observation in the field, made possible via the sensibilities of an educated elite. Next, we turn to Somerville's output, which encompasses her representations of volcanic environments in the form of letters, but which also notes the significance of the new literary space created by the scientific textbook. With this history in mind, we go on to outline something of the contemporary movement to collaborate across art and science, on the subject of volcanoes, drawing out how their aesthetics allow pause for thought on the hesitancies and complexities of volcanic science itself, as well as the manner in which key concepts such as 'deep time' become sedimented in broader understandings of human-environment relations (Wilkinson 2005).

## 2 A Gentleman's Report

Over the course of the 18th century a plethora of what Edmund Burke (see Phillips 2008) was to refer to, in his classic texts of 1770 and 1796, as 'sublime' landscapes—that is, capable of producing awe and even terror in the observer—were to be configured not simply as visceral experiences, but

also as complex scenes that could be described and even explained by virtue of a close attentiveness to both their sweep and their detail. These landscapes were encountered in the rural margins of Europe, as well as the newly colonised lands of America and Austral-Asia, by discerning, wealthy visitors who, cognizant of philosophical discussions on the role of the intellect in making sense of sensual phenomena, as well as rapidly developing techniques of recording and mapping physical phenomena, viewed themselves as having the subtle imagination necessary to appreciate what lay before them. Most of the British visitors to the Continent were preoccupied with the 'Grand Tour' and the cultivation of a sense of cultural superiority through travel, but some, such as Sir William Hamilton (the British Envoy to the Spanish Court at Naples, 1764–1800), were on official, diplomatic business, and took the opportunity to enhance their residence abroad by reporting on the scientific value of nearby landscapes, such as the volcanic landscapes of Vesuvius, to an organised scientific community (Ramage 1990; Vaccari 2008).

One of the key nodes of scientific knowledge making at this time was the Royal Society (or, 'The President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'), established in 1660 following a charter by King Charles II, and granted funds from Parliament in return for providing the government scientific advice on a wide variety of subjects. Inspired by the empiricism of Baconian science, the Royal Society was constituted by wealthy gentlemen interested in experimentation and detailed observation as a means of grasping the natural laws that underlay the human condition, as well as the universe at large (Atkinson 1998); research that was published in regular editions of the *Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society* (1675 onwards), distributed to fee-paying members. These articles were in turn constituted in large part from letters sent to the society's headquarters, and read aloud to an audience that could also include interested non-members. These missives imparted content, to be sure, but in a format that made clear that this was an exchange of ideas between colleagues; a communicative procedure that
expressed the immediacy of a face-to-face conversation, and even the rhythm and tone of the spoken word, even as it made clear the often immense physical separation between author and audience (Redford 1986). Often, they were accompanied by objects of interest, such as mineralogical displays or fossils, that provided a tangible focus for the play of intellectual curiosity (Da Costa 2002).

Such letters were by far the most important medium for the production of scientific knowledge in the 18th century. In the context of the Royal Society, these letters made clear an intellectual curiosity on behalf of the scientist, but also a rendering of scientific practice as a moral as well as instrumental enterprise, characterised by diligence, a discerning judgement, and skilled workmanship (Sorrenson 1996). It is these qualities that ensured the production of accurate, ‘true-to-nature’ observations. Crucially, these observations were achieved not by erasing either the individuality or situatedness of the scientist, nor by imagining the body of the scientist as somehow separate from Nature, but via the careful cultivation of one’s immersion in Nature. The experiments that scientists conducted were as much a matter of a mannered sensibility, then, as the correspondence via which they were reported.

This careful cultivation of a scientific aesthetic—by which is meant a sensuous as well as cognitive engagement with Nature—can be clearly discerned in the work of Hamilton, one of the most famous early correspondents on volcanic landscapes, and whose communications so neatly befitted the mannerism of social attitudes towards science at the time. Hamilton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1766; a long-distance membership that complemented his antiquarian interests, as well as his curiosity concerning the forces that shaped the Earth’s surface over substantial periods of geologic time. Contemporaneous explorations of Pompeii and Herculaneum had, of course, stimulated interest in the Classics, but had also raised the issue of the formative role of volcanoes, and in particular the vexing question of where the vast heat

sources needed for eruption were located. Were these deep underground, or much closer to the summit? Such a question was in turn situated within a rapidly unfolding earth science that, whilst it left the origins of the Earth to religion, nevertheless sought to describe and analyse mountains in terms of an internal examination of the lithology and the fossil content of rocks, the geomorphology of an area (as read though its dips and inclines, for example), and of geologic strata as providing a chronology of the Earth’s formation.

With a house in the foothills of Vesuvius, as well as a residence in Naples, Hamilton was to explore this volcano’s craters and associated features time and again, all the while collecting antiques and landscape paintings as well as local gemstones and geological samples (Sleep 1969; Ramage 1990). Letters recounting his experiences were read at weekly meetings in London, where the audience could peruse the paintings, sketches, lava and soil samples that Hamilton had also sent over. Some of these images were adapted and published alongside the letters in *Philosophical Transactions*. For Hamilton, such images of the landscape, as well as tangible objects collected from them, were very much a key component of knowledge making. That is, these did not simply capture the interest of others, but were able to sensually convey, in a visual, material form, something of the eye witness, aesthetic experience he himself had cultivated.

Hamilton’s production in 1776 of the richly illustrated folio collection of letters, *Campi Phlegraei: observations on the volcanos of the two Sicilies*, is testament to this desire to more fully immerse interested observers in volcanic landscapes, as well as to inform them of his own commentaries. A sensuous engagement with landscape, via the cultivated senses, was a far superior route to knowledge, he wrote, than “systems, which other ingenious and learned men, have perhaps formed in their closets, with as little foundation of felt experience.” These were likely to “heap error upon error” (p. 5). Though Hamilton was well aware of the visceral
effect of such scenes, as well as the emotions raised by a consideration of how past towns and villages had suffered, he did not consider these to be sublime in the sense that they indicated an awesome, indifferent Nature, as Kant would have it. Neither did Hamilton emphasise the overpowering forces of Nature in the manner of Burke's narrative on the sublime (1770, 1796), which unnervingly depicted the ease with which Nature could strike. Instead, Hamilton harkened to a more traditional view of Nature, whereby such tumultuous episodes were yet part of a fundamentally harmonious relationship between environment and society. "There is no doubt, but that the neighbourhood of an active Volcano, must suffer from time to time the most dire calamities, the natural attendants of earthquakes, and eruptions...." he wrote, "But to consider such misfortunes, on the great scale of nature, it was no more than the chance or ill fate of those cities to have stood in the line of its operations; intended perhaps for some wise purpose, and the benefit of future generations" (p. 3–4) including, he noted, rich soils for agriculture.

The cost and rarity of this text, and its appendix of images, also, it must be noted, enhanced Hamilton's own dilettante status. Overseeing the entire publication process, Hamilton employed the Naples-based painter Peter Fabris to sketch the locales described in his

letters, "being still sensible of the great difficulty of conveying a true idea of the curious country I have described, by words alone" (p. 5); these sketches were then engraved, printed, and hand-painted in gouache by a cohort of local artists (for example, Fig. 1). In most of these plates, Hamilton himself is drawn, pointing out key features, or resting on his walking stick; a technique that reiterated once more the importance of a truth-to-nature, eye-witness account by a gentleman observer capable of discerning the subtleties of Nature. In *Campi Phlegraei*, Karen Wood writes,

> Readers could view the separate volumes of plates and letters in parallel. Thus integrated, Campi Phlegraei's literary and visual technologies contributed simultaneously to achieving a more complete witnessing experience... Whereas the pictures in Philosophical Transactions had depicted only distant eruptions, Campi Phlegraei's plates had more varied subject matter. Many placed foreground human figures in specific, visible relationships with the landscape, dramatizing the practices embodied by the book. People positioned on the mountainside stressed direct interaction with nature, while those absorbed in concentrated thought demonstrated focused attention... Using colour, lighting and pose, these plates also distinguished visually the rational behaviour of curious aristocrats from the captivated fear and wonder of awe-struck peasants... His final plates depicted examples of volcanic matter in remarkable detail, using trompe l'oeil techniques that

<figure><img src="image_228.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1** Hamilton at the crater of Forum Vulcani, examining the sulphur and arsenic that emerged from craters near the source of hot springs. *Source* Campi Phlegraei (1776)</figcaption></figure>
invited beholders to inspect the images just as they
would specimens in a collector's cabinet (2006,
p. 90-91).

3 A Scientist's Synthesis

Though the importance of witnessing phenomena
first-hand, and of accurately describing them,
was to remain a pivotal objective of scientific
practice into the 19th century, we can also track a
gradual erasure of the sensuous, embodied pres-
ence of the scientist from the communicative
process, and a simultaneous celebration of the
intellect as a means of synthesising information
and organising it into a comprehensible whole
for others. In the work of Mary Somerville, we
can discern the first major English-language
effort to create such a 'modern' synthesis for a
rapidly evolving geographic discipline, one that
strove to distinguish its practitioners as experts in
human-environment relations, but was yet pop-
ulated by academics whose research, like Som-
erville's, extended across what we now think of
as the sciences and arts.

Despite a highly gendered academic and
social environment, Somerville was able to make
use of personal networks in both an ‘Enlight-
ened’ Edinburgh and Paris, and the Royal Soci-
ety (of which her second husband was a member)
to further her research into mathematics, astron-
omy and geology, but also to practice painting
and Greek (see Patterson 1974). She was elected
honorary membership of Société de Physique et
d’Histoire Naturelle de Genève, and the Royal
Irish Academy in 1834, was a member of the
Royal Astronomical Society in 1835. She went
on to be elected to the American Geographical
and Statistical Society in 1857, and the Italian
Geographical Society in 1870, receiving the
Victoria Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical
Society that same year. Like many of her British
contemporaries, Somerville thus straddled two
worlds, and thrived upon contestation; on the one
hand, she was the product of what was becoming
known as a scientific ‘amateurism’ characterised
by self-funded and self-governed scientific
assemblies; on the other hand, her expertise was

formally recognised by the 'professional,' conti-
nental scientific circles residing in university
departments and granted stature through a pro-
motion and awards system.

Mary Somerville moved to Rome for her
husband's health in 1838, where she began work
on the two-volume *Physical Geography* (1858).
She lived in Italy until her death, travelling
throughout the country and maintaining a travel
diary as well as correspondence with scientists
across Europe, and family; some of these are
collected in Somerville's *Personal Recollections*
(1874). These documents recorded her descent
into the crater of Vesuvius in 1818, and her
witnessing of the April 1872 eruption. And, in
them can be discerned her interest in the Earth as
a dynamic planetary body, but also of the aes-
thetic, visceral impact of volcanic processes.
That is, Somerville is at pains to convey the
first-hand experience of the field, noting scenery,
sounds, smells and even the touch of the land-
scape. Somerville uses the power of the textual
narrative to initiate the reader's senses and, in
due course, educate the reader on the character-
istics and processes of the natural, geomorpho-
logical environment. Many times within the text
her tone is scenic, reflecting her painterly eye;
she notes, for example, "We have bright
sun-shine with bitterly cold wind and frost,
Vesuvius has been powdered with snow but still
sends out vapour" (January 1869).

During the 1872 eruption of Vesuvius, how-
ever, Somerville's description becomes more
visceral and sublime. Somerville's account is
geared more towards the awe-inspiring nature of
volcanoes, rendered in terms of their cataclysmic
impacts, and their colouring of landscapes as
gloomy and risk-ridden. "On Sunday, 28th," she
wrote, "I was surprised at the extreme darkness
... the fall was a little less dense during the day,
but at night it was worse than ever ... certainly
the constant loud roaring of Vesuvius was
appalling enough amidst the darkness and gloom
of the falling ashes" (1874, p. 369). "In sunshine
the contrast was beautiful," she continued, "be-
tween the jet-black smoke and the silvery-white
clouds of vapour ... At length, the mountain
returned to apparent tranquillity, though the
this message remains, hopefully, consistent across context, regardless of who the reader is, or of what the format of the book itself looks like.

## 4 The Fall and Rise Again of Aesthetics

For much of the Earth Sciences, today, the purity of the ‘message’ promised by the mass media textbook is matched by the ‘objectivity’ of data produced through field-based research. To be sure, observing in the field remains a crucial part of Earth Science training; but, this is now rigidly systematized as the technologically enhanced, error-free measurement and recording of variables. Such aesthetic encounters, in effect, allow for the production of data. On occasion, an interest in art can still be discerned. But, such works are valued because they presumably ‘capture’ something of the ‘real’ world nature of events.

A key example of this instrumental approach is Zerefos et al.’s (2007) reconstruction of past aerosol optical depth, before, during and after major volcanic eruptions, using as data proxies the coloration of the atmosphere in 500 paintings that depicted sunsets between 1500 and 1900. They note that the artists under study “appear to have simulated the colours of nature with a remarkably precise coloration”, and conclude that their study provides a “basis for more research that can be done on environmental information content in art paintings” (p. 4033). The fundamental separation of art and science posited here can also be found, it must be noted, in numerous art statements and curated exhibitions. The recent major retrospective *Volcano: Turner to Warhol*, held in 2010 at the Compton Verney Gallery, for example, juxtaposed iconic and new art works that emphasise the ‘mystery’ of these phenomena with the comments of volcanologists, the latter pointing out the ‘realities’ of the processes at work.

Yet, one can also discern a burgeoning ‘art-science’ movement that eschews the

modern-day, institutional compartmentalization that distances the arts, as a subcomponent of the humanities, from the natural sciences, and looks instead to how these revolve within a shared history characterized as much by negotiation, mutual learning, and symbiosis as by the search for fundamental difference. A prominent example of this kind of work is *The Other Volcano*, produced under the auspices of volcanologist Carina Fearnley and designer/performer Nelly Ben Hayoun. The project takes the form of what the artist describes as ‘semi-domesticated volcanoes’, each capable of ‘randomly’ erupting dust and gloop (from a combination of gunpowders, potassium nitrate and sugar), and housed in galleries—such as the Welcome Trust, London (October–December 2010) and the Central Booking Gallery, New York (April–June 2011)—and the living spaces of volunteers. As Dixon et al. describe it,

> It is while ‘waiting’ for the eruption, which sometimes does not happen, that observers are presented with the complexity of natural disasters, as well as the challenges faced by those who predict natural hazards (2012, p. 12).

A key concern here is not to present the work as an ‘alternative’ form of science communication concerning environmental risk—one that has public appeal because of its spectacular imagery. Rather, the intent is to convey a state of anticipation and anxiety that cuts across scientific and artistic cohorts, and extends to the public at large; while these motions may well be experienced in singular fashion, there is yet a shared awareness of the affective capacity of such earth shuddering events.

One of the ‘radical’ aspects of Mary Somerville’s work was her acceptance of what Scottish geologist James Hutton referred to as a time with “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end” (1785, 30). And, artists working on volcanic landscapes have for the most part attempted to convey something of this abyssal sense of time past, and time future, punctuated by blasts of movement and energy during eruptions that fracture and warp physical space, by drawing attention to the differing materialities of
sedimentary layers and lava in motion. One can also discern, however, an effort to blur, entangle and generally probematise the notion of a human versus an Earthly time. Ilana Halperin's *Meeting on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge* (1999) and *Integrating Catastrophe* (2000), for example, both explore the fleshy and elemental temporalities at work in encountering volcanoes. The former, a photograph, features two pairs of feet standing on either side of a fissure. The latter, a series of sketches, builds on this, imagining that,

> In the North of Iceland along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, two newlyweds move into their first house. They are very excited - new house/new life. No one tells them when they move into the house that it sits on a fault line. There is a massive volcanic eruption followed by an earthquake. Their house splits in two. Their living room has a huge gash straight through it. They are horrified—devastated. What does this mean? Their house is destroyed. Their marriage had only just begun, and the chasm running through their marital bed does not bode well for their future. They realise that actually, the house has a clean break down the middle, and instead of devastation it could be a sign for something much better. They build a new room in the space of the gap, transforming a potentially catastrophic situation into an expanded living space. Integrating catastrophe (www.ilanahalperin.com/new/integrating_catastrophe.html, 2014).

Subsequent works, which are undertaken in the field alongside mineralogists, geologists, and archaeologists as well as volcanologists, explore what Halperin terms a 'geologic intimacy' (www.ilanahalperin.com/new/statement, 2014); a project that very much resonates with efforts in human geography to map out a more elementally-aware 'post-humanism' that no longer equates agency with human will. There is no doubt that art has the capacity to heighten an audience's awareness of the emotional connections drawn between humans and their volcanic environments (Sigurdsson 1999). What seems to be stimulating more recent works, however, is a fascination with how scientific notions of a 'deep time' (Wilkinson 2005) provide a contrast with more avowedly social temporalities, from policy time-frames to anniversaries, but also help call into question how these same temporalities are

themselves interwoven with a more elemental Earth History.

As the process of representing volcanic environments has delved into virtual and digital worlds, the rise of the internet has drastically transformed the relationship that society has with such landscapes and their temporalities. The generation and exploitation of social media sites, together with the rise of applications such as Google Earth, allows the audience a new sense of wonder, whereby they can 'journey' through volcanic worlds in real-time. A stark contrast with the texts of Somerville, and the emotive imagery of Halperin, emerging screen-based practices transform the positionality of the traveller, engaging them in a manner that asserts them as an end-user, able to control the pace and prowess of their own movement from the domestic or enclosed space within which they are situated into a mobile, fluid and data-dense virtual field. It is within this multi-faceted spectrum field of vision/action that a new, affective envisioning of volcanic environments can be explored, shaped and interrogated.

## 5 Concluding Remarks

Collectively, the communicative mediums outlined above provide what Wise (2006) calls a 'materialized epistemology,' by which he means that these are not simply the end-products of a scientific project, but are themselves an essential part of 'doing' the work of knowledge production. And, in drawing out particular examples, we can discern a key shift in how aesthetics, and art, have been considered a part of, and indeed outside of, scientific practice (Sigurdsson 1999). That is, in the 18th century, aesthetics are actually key to the emergence of an observant science, one that makes explicit the role of gentlemanly sensibilities in making sense of Nature. By the turn of the 20th century, however, such an embodied practice has come under suspicion as prone to bias and error; in its place, we see an unfolding God's Eye view of Nature that
promises to provide a pure, unsullied message that remains constant across audiences and mediums. With the onset of the 21st century, however, we can also discern something of a retrospective approach to volcanic communication. This art-science movement is by no means restricted to an educated elite—indeed, a variety of audiences are envisioned—but it does seriously re-engage with aesthetics a means of creating and building knowledges concerning volcanoes.

The question emerges, however, as to the value and relevance of such collaborative efforts. On the one hand, there is no doubt that these are receiving greater prominence, and funding, in light of the pervasive argument that environmental problems, including volcanic hazards, are ‘wicked,’ such that the expertise of several disciplines must needs be brought to bear in their analysis. Critiques of a modern-day ‘silo-thinking,’ for example, can be found across the UK’s physical, engineering, social science and arts-focused Research Councils, as well as an ensuing presumption that solutions lie in ‘bridging’ such divides. On the other hand, there is also an intellectual impetus at work here. That is, we can also discern what is usefully described as a ‘transdisciplinary’ effort that seeks out otherwise abandoned and dismissed histories—such as an Earth Science aesthetic—and reanimates these as a means of creating ‘new’ knowledges. Critical of synthesis as both a method and a goal, such transdisciplinary work helps to recast what we consider ‘communication’ to be, casting it adrift in a sea of contingency that refuses reduction to a fixed set of practices and effects, yet, we hope, is all the more welcomed for that.

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# Living with an Active Volcano:
## Informal and Community Learning
## for Preparedness in South of Japan

Kaori Kitagawa

### Abstract

In a disaster-prone country like Japan, learning how to live with disaster [kyozon] has been crucial. Particularly since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011, disaster preparedness has been a primary concern of the government. Drawing on Paton's (The phoenix of natural disasters: community resilience. Nova Science Publishers, New York, pp. 13–31, 2008) Community Engagement Theory, which endorses an integrated model that combines risk management with community development, this study discusses the case of Sakurajima Volcano (SV) situated in the south of Japan, with a focus on how the lessons learnt from previous eruption experiences have informed present-day preparedness activities. The study adapts Community Engagement Theory's quantitative framework to a qualitative analysis to consider the preparedness teaching and learning of a population living with the everyday threat of volcanic hazards in the case of SV. The study argues that two particular local lores—'do not rely on authorities' and 'be frightened effectively'—have been the underlying principles in volcanic preparedness in the region. The study also argues that the notion of 'kyojo [collaborative partnerships]' has been central to the planning and implementation of preparedness programmes, such as the Sakurajima Taisho Eruption Centenary Project, which offered a wide range of informal teaching and learning opportunities. Applying the framework of Community Engagement Theory, the paper suggests that at the individual level, the principles of 'do not rely on authorities' and 'be frightened effectively' form the basis for positive 'outcome expectancy'. At the community level, 'kyojo' is the notion which encompasses both of the community factors—'community participation' and 'collective efficacy'. At the societal level, 'kyojo'

<footnote>K. Kitagawa (✉)
Cass School of Education and Communities,
University of East London, E15 4LZ London, UK
e-mail: k.kitagawa@uel.ac.uk</footnote>
contributes to the building of ‘empowerment’ and ‘trust’ between citizens and authorities. The paper concludes by proposing that the SV case can be considered as an example of ‘the integrated model’.

# 1 Introduction

Japan is located in the Circum-Pacific Mobile Belt where seismic and volcanic activities occur constantly (Cabinet Office 2011). The teaching and learning of disaster preparedness has been a primary concern of the government, particularly since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsumami of 2011 (Kitagawa 2014; The Expert Committee<fnref n="1" /> 2012). Where natural disasters are not exceptional (Preston et al. 2014), learning how to live with disaster [kyozon] has been crucial. This paper examines preparedness for Sakurajima Volcano, which is an active volcano in Kagoshima City, Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan. In Japanese, ‘Sakurajima’ refers to both the volcano and the island.<fnref n="2" /> In this paper, Sakurajima as a volcano is referred to as ‘Sakurajima Volcano (SV)’, and Sakurajima as an island is called ‘Sakurajima’. Focusing on how lessons have been learned from previous eruption experiences, the study aims to contribute to the development of a preparedness model of ‘living with an active volcano’.

In Japan, volcanic preparedness was systematised in a government-led initiative (1974–2008) (Ishihara 2012), which introduced the volcanic warning system and implemented mitigation plans, hazard maps and evacuation plans for major active volcanoes. However, prevention, response and recovery measures for volcanic disaster have not been as advanced as those for

earthquakes or floods (Takahashi 2007). This was unfortunately demonstrated by the recent disaster at Ontake Volcano in central Japan, which has become the worst volcanic disaster in Japan in the past 90 years (BBC 2014), since the 1914 eruption of SV.<fnref n="3" /> Prior to the eruption, there had been debate about whether to raise the warning level which was Level 1⁴ at the time. The incident reconfirmed the complex nature of volcanic preparedness.

This paper discusses the development of the volcanic preparedness in the Kagoshima region (Fig. 1). The purpose is twofold: first, to examine how the lessons learnt from the Taisho Eruption<fnref n="5" /> of 1914 have informed present-day preparedness activities; and second, to explore whether the SV case can be considered as ‘an integrated model’ endorsed by Paton’s Community Engagement Theory (CET). The paper first argues that two particular local lores—‘do not rely on authorities [riron ni shinraisezu]’ and ‘be frightened effectively [seito ni kowagaru]’<fnref n="6" />—have taught the local population the underlying principles of volcanic preparedness—the development of

<footnote n="1">¹The Expert Committee to Discuss Disaster Education and Management Considering the Lessons Learnt From the Great East Japan Earthquake [Higashinihon daishinsai o uketa bosaikyoiku/bosaikanri ni kansuru yushikisha kaigi].</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²90 % of Sakurajima Island is occupied by the volcano. Sakurajima has been referred to as an island rather than a peninsula although the island was connected to the mainland by a lava flow in 1914.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Ontake Volcano erupted on 27 September 2014, killing 51 people (as of 31 October 2014). The victims who were mostly hikers were said to have covered by dense ash fall and inhaled poisonous fumes or hit by ash deposits thrown out from the crater.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴The current official volcanic warnings set by the Japan Meteorological Agency are: Level 1 Normal; Level 2 Do not approach the crater; Level 3 Do not approach the volcano; Level 4 Prepare to evacuate; Level 5 Evacuate.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Japan uses its own name of an era which refers to the Emperor at the time. Taisho Era was 1912–1926, the reign of Taisho Emperor, Yoshihito. Showa Era was 1926–1989, the reign of Showa Emperor, Hirohito. The current era is Heisei Era, the reign of Heisei Emperor, Akihito. The eruption of 1914 occurred during Taisho Era, and therefore it has been referred to as ‘Taisho Eruption’.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶The former is part of the inscription on the Sakurajima Taisho Eruption Monument, and the latter is the words from an intellectual.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_229.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1** Map of Kagoshima</figcaption></figure>

agency and the control of emotion. The paper also looks at the implementation of the above two principles through informal<fnref n="7" /> teaching and learning programmes. The paper argues that those programmes are based on ‘kyojo’<fnref n="8" />—col-laborative partnerships—which has become the key policy term in disaster preparedness in Japan particularly since 2011.

In parallel, the paper discusses the qualitative findings, applying the individual/community/ societal framework of CET. The argument of the theory is that ‘an integrated model’ that combines risk management and community development is an effective and sustainable approach to enhance community resilience to adversity (Paton et al. 2011; Paton 2008; Paton and Johnston 2006). Unlike Paton et al’s (2013) and Paton and Jang’s (2013) studies, this paper is not measuring the factors that contribute to peo-ple’s intention to prepare for disaster, rather the variables of the theory—‘outcome expectancy’, ‘community participation’, ‘collective efficacy’, ‘empowerment’, ‘trust’—are employed to con-sider the preparedness teaching and learning of a

<footnote n="7">⁷Here, ‘informal’ teaching and learning refers to a form of teaching and learning outside of formal schooling.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸‘Kyojo’ is part of the four forms of aid: kojo, jijo, gojo and kyojo. The common word ‘jo’ at the end means ‘aid’. ‘Kojo’ is aid provided by governments, both central and local, and ‘jijo’ is self-help. ‘Gojo and ‘kyojo’ refer to mutual help, however, the difference lies in that the former happens within the people you are familiar with, whereas the latter has a philanthropic nature.</footnote>
population living with the everyday threat of volcanic hazards in the case of SV.

The paper is structured in the following way. The first section of the paper is about methodological and theoretical considerations of this study. This is followed by a description of the major volcanic activities of SV. The paper then analyses the population response to the Taisho Eruption, lessons learned from it and present-day communication about volcanic conditions in the Kagoshima region. In doing so, the paper connects the findings from the SV case to the key concepts of CET. The challenges that the government and the population face in living with the active volcano are also discussed.

## 2 Methodological and Theoretical Considerations

This case study particularly focused on two aspects of the disaster cycle: how population response informs disaster prevention and reduction. More concretely, the following six questions were pursued:

1. What lessons were learnt from the Taisho Eruption of 1914?

2. Why did false rumours circulate? What did the phrase ‘do not rely on authorities’ aim to convey?

3. How is the phrase ‘learning to be frightened effectively’ understood? What measures have been undertaken to teach the principle?

4. What forms of volcanic preparedness particularly outside of formal schooling are currently in place?

5. SV has been active again since 2006, and the Warning Level has remained at 3 since 2012. The local population are used to regular volcanic hazards, and Level 3 has become a norm to them. Under such circumstances, how do they learn/have they learned ‘to be frightened effectively’?

6. What are the examples of kyojo activities for the teaching and learning of ‘do not rely on authorities’ and ‘be frightened effectively’?

Data collection and analysis were arranged to respond to the above questions in the following way. First, the study made use of the rich information available in the documentation of the Taisho Eruption undertaken as part of the Sakurajima Taisho Eruption Centenary Project (Centenary Project).<fnref n="9" /> Empirical fieldwork was then organised in order to triangulate the information obtained from the documentary analysis. Sakurajima itself and two museums (the Sakurajima Visitor Center and the Prefectural Museum of Kagoshima) were visited to familiarise myself with the volcanology of SV and to obtain the official archival record of the eruptions, responses and recovery. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three groups of experts: regional policy makers,<fnref n="10" /> academics<fnref n="11" /> and a curator/researcher of an archival museum.<fnref n="12" /> In addition, online resources such as newspaper articles were used to fill any gaps. Thus, the data were analysed according to the six questions, while being collected at each step of the data collection—documentary analysis, archival research and expert interviews.

CET is based on the perspective that risk management and community development as complementary, and such an integrated model of preparedness permits a resilient community.<fnref n="13" /> Paton’s (2008, p 3) approach is that ‘people’s understanding of, and response to, risk is determined not only by scientific information about risk, but also by the manner in which this information interacts with psychological, social,

<footnote n="9">⁹The Centenary Project was implemented in 2013–14 funded by the prefectural and municipal governments of Kagoshima. The detail of the Centenary Project is introduced in the later section.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰From the Risk Management and Disaster Prevention Unit from the Kagoshima City authority. Interviewed on 22 July 2014.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹From the Regional Disaster Reduction Education and Research Center at Kagoshima University. Interviewed on 23 July 2014.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹²From the Prefectural Museum of Kagoshima. Interviewed on 23 July 2014.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³In Japan, for example, Shiroshita’s (2010) ‘collaborative education [kyoiku]’ is a similar notion, which emphasises collaborative and democratic partnerships, and ownership by the members of the community.</footnote>
cultural, institutional and political processes to
influence outcome....these factors must be
understood and accommodated in risk commu-
nication strategies'. The theory suggests that
interpretive process at the individual level (out-
come expectancy) interacts with communities
/community participation, collective efficacy) and
societal relationship (empowerment, trust) factors
to influence preparedness (Paton 2008). Quanti-
tative methods are usually applied in finding out
the interactions between the preparedness vari-
ables. As a qualitative study, this paper does not
intend to measure those interactions, but to
explore how the findings of the case of SV could
be interpreted, borrowing those concepts.

Five key concepts of the theory are briefly
explained here. ‘Outcome expectancy’ at the
individual level is about a person’s belief as to
whether her/his actions can effectively mitigate
or reduce the problem (Paton et al. 2013, p. 21).
At the community level, ‘community participa-
tion’ refers to community members’ ability to
collaborate to make decisions on effective
responses for possible hazards and mitigation
strategies. ‘Collective efficacy’ is community
members’ ability to assess their capabilities and
create plans. The societal-level ‘empowerment’
and ‘trust’ variables refer to the relationship
between citizens and authorities. When people
believe their relationship with authorities is fair,
empowering and trustworthy, people are more
willing to get involved and take responsibility for
their own safety (Paton et al. 2013, p. 22).

The paper now moves on to consider the case
of SV with reference to this framework.

3 Sakurajima Volcano's Activities

**3.1 Overview of Volcanic Activities**

SV emerged about 26,000 years ago at the south
end of Aira Caldera. The volcano currently has
three peaks—Kitadake (north mountain), Naka-
dake (middle mountain) and Minamidake (south
mountain) which has been most active (Japan
Meteorological Agency 2014). In its recorded
history, SV has had 17 major eruptions, the ones

in 746, 1472, 1779 and 1914 being the largest
four. Except the 19 years after the Taisho Erup-
tion of 1914, SV has continuously been active
during the past 100 years. In 1946, the lava flow
exploded near the peak of Minamidake, created
the Showa Crater<fnref n="14" /> and buried two villages. The
Minamidake crater has been active since 1955,<fnref n="15" />
and between 1972 and the early 1990s, eruptions
were frequent<fnref n="16" /> (Centenary Committee <fnref n="17" /> 2014,
p 156; Ishikawa cited in Kagoshima University<fnref n="18" />
2014, p. 39). SV was less active until 2006,
eruptions have become more frequent since
2009, and in 2012, the Meteorological Agency
announced the volcanic alert Level 3—‘do not
approach the volcano’—which has remained
unchanged since.<fnref n="19" />

Research has confirmed that 90 percent of the
magma which erupted in 1914 has already been
re-accumulated in the underground of Aira Cal-
dera which is said to be the main magma reservoir
of SV. Three concrete scenarios have been pro-
posed: (1) the re-aggravation of the Minamidake
crater; (2) the aggravation of the Showa Crater
followed by large lava flows; (3) flank eruptions
of the scale of the Taisho Eruption from both
mountainsides (Centenary Committee 2014,
p. 142). Science and technology have advanced
understanding of the volcano, and preparedness
education for the above scenarios are underway.
The circumstances at the time of the Taisho
Eruption, however, were very different.

<footnote n="14">¹⁴As explained above, ‘Showa’ refers to the era of Showa.
Some refer to this eruption as ‘the Showa Eruption’.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵Its summit erupted causing a 5000 m volcanic fume and a high volume of ash deposits which killed one hiker and injured a few others.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶During this period, secondary damage was a concern
because rain turned the accumulated ash fall into sediment
flows threatening the life of the people of the island.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷The Planning Committee of the Sakurajima Taisho
Eruption Centenary Project.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">¹⁸The Department of Domestic Science Education, Fac-
ulty of Education, Kagoshima University.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹In August 2013, there was an explosive eruption,
resulting in a 5,000-metre volcanic fume and a large
quantity of ash fall which reached the city of Kagoshima.
The number of recorded eruptions per year in the past five
years has been 896, 996, 885, 835 and for 2014, as of 13
August, 209 had already been recorded.</footnote>
## 3.2 Taisho Eruption: The Largest in the 20th Century in Japan

At 10:05 on 12 January in 1914, a flank eruption occurred on the west mountainside, and 15 min later, a larger flank eruption occurred on the east mountainside of SV.<fnref n="20" /> The volcanic fume rose more than 8000 m, and the ash fall reached as far as the Kamchatka in Russia. Eight hours after the eruption at 18:30, a Magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit the city of Kagoshima. At 20:14, pyroclastic flow began, which burnt whole villages on the west side of the island. From at around 21:00, the pyroclastic flow turned to lava flows, which reached the coastline by the following evening.<fnref n="21" /> The total amount of the ash fall was estimated to be two square kilometres, and that of the lava flows was three billion tons. The accumulated ash fall became sediment flows in the mountains in the region, as well as in Sakurajima (Central Disaster Council 2011, p. 38; Kagoshima University 2014, p. 41).

## 3.3 Damage Brought About by the Taisho Eruption

In 1914, Sakurajima was made up of 3400 households and 21,300 inhabitants. Given the scale of the eruption, the human damage on the island—30 dead or missing—was considered to be small. Of the 30, only two deaths were directly caused by volcanic ejecta. The majority were drowned trying to escape by sea<fnref n="22" /> (Centenary Committee 2014, p. 51; Central Disaster Council 2011, p. 40). The property damage was enormous. On Sakurajima, a number of villages were swallowed completely by lava or covered

by ash. 62 percent of the houses were burnt down by lava and pyroclastic flows. Residents in surrounding cities also lost homes which were covered by thick ash fall. The earthquake also destroyed houses in Kagoshima City<fnref n="23" /> (Centenary Committee 2014, p. 52; Central Disaster Council 2011, p. 40). Nearly half of the population in total had to migrate from Sakurajima after the Taisho disaster (Central Disaster Council 2011, pp. 44–45).

Infrastructure failure was massive. Roads were closed and bridges were destroyed on Sakurajima. On the mainland, some railway lines were destroyed, and telecommunications were disrupted due to the collapse of stations and electrical failure. Agricultural crops in Sakurajima were significantly damaged as well<fnref n="24" /> (Centenary Committee 2014, pp. 40–45, 52; Central Disaster Council 2011, pp. 39–41; Kagoshima University 2014, p. 42). Moreover, secondary damage continued for another 10 years. The mountain, still covered by a large amount of ash fall, was attacked by torrential rains in the following months, which led to frequent sediment flows sweeping away more farms and houses. A number of floods were caused by rising river beds because of the accumulated ash fall (Centenary Committee 2014, pp. 46–50).

# 4 Population Response of the Taisho Eruption

## 4.1 Delayed and Divided Responses

Prior to the eruption, many islanders picked up the warning signs of a large-scale eruption. These included the drop in water levels in wells and continuous earth tremors. They began preparing for self-evacuation without waiting for an official instruction. Such lessons had been handed down from previous generations. However, the official

<footnote n="20">²⁰The Taisho Eruption was part of the geodetic phenomenon in the region surrounding Kagoshima Prefecture since 1913.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹The lava flow from the west mountainside continued for two months, whereas the one from the east mountainside continued for nearly a year, which connected Sakurajima and Osumi Peninsula.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²²The earthquake in Kagoshima City added 29 deaths and 111 injured.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³Out of the 13,000 houses, 1.3 % totally collapsed and 70 % partly collapsed.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴Agriculture being the primary industry of the island, Kagoshima Prefecture had to face the economic implications of the damage in the following years.</footnote>
forecast from the local meteorological station stated ‘no threat of a SV eruption’. In those days, there was only one old-style seismograph and no expert in volcanology or seismology was based at the station. Following the station’s announcement, village authorities advised villagers there would be no need for evacuation. The response of the general public was divided. About half the islanders ignored the official view and followed their own judgement based on the aforementioned warning signs and evacuated the island before the actual eruption. The better-educated, however, followed official advice and waited until it was too late. The 30 fatalities mentioned above were made up people who followed official advice and remained on the island. The official forecast also delayed the response of the prefectural and municipal governments and the police (Centenary Committee 2014, pp. 32–34; Central Disaster Council 2011, pp. 31–42).

## 4.2 Panic Followed by False Rumours

When the Magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Kagoshima City, the false rumour spread across the city that ‘a massive tsunami and a poisonous gas attack will hit the region soon’. It is said that the rumour was created by college students whose motivation was unknown. However, the rumour contributed to a surge of panic, resulting in extreme behaviours such as people rushing to the main railway station leaving everything behind. Kagoshima City became literally empty at one point. The turmoil continued until 13 days after the eruption when a professor of seismology travelled from Tokyo and convinced the population in Kagoshima, that there was ‘no further threat to the city’ (Centenary Committee 2014, p. 34; Central Disaster Council 2011, p. 43).

In Kagoshima, two important lessons have been emphasised since the experience of this disaster. The next section explores how those lessons can be understood in the context of CET that connects personal, community and societal factors with preparedness and resilience.

# 5 Lessons Learnt: ‘Do not Rely on Authorities’ and ‘Be Frightened Effectively’

## 5.1 ‘Do not Rely on Authorities’—the Development of Agency

After the Taisho Eruption, 64 stone monuments were built within Kagoshima Prefecture. Some of these were to commemorate migration, but the majority conveyed the lessons learnt from the disaster (Suzuki 2014). One of the best-known monuments is the Sakurajima Taisho Eruption Monument built 10 years after the disaster in a village in east Sakurajima. Called ‘The Monument to the Distrust of Science’, part of the inscription literally says, ‘citizens must not rely on theory [jumin wa riron ni shinraisezu]’ (Centenary Committee 2014, p. 57; Central Disaster Council 2011, p. 42). The words refer to the story of the 30 islanders who lost their lives because they did not evacuate, following the authority’s instruction and trusting the ‘scientific’ judgement of the meteorological station. The village mayor who had trusted the forecast regretted advising the villagers to stay on the island and felt it was his responsibility to convey the lesson to future generations.<fnref n="25" />

The meaning of the inscription requires a further explanation. What it intended to convey was not the denying of scientific theories and methods, but the importance of individuals’ proactive and responsible attitude towards disaster preparedness (Centenary Committee 2014, p. 57; Central Disaster Council 2011, p. 42). The inscription promoted the development of citizens’ ‘agency’, as an antithesis to the passive attitude of the 30 villagers who completely relied on the authority’s instruction. Despite the wording of ‘theory’ and ‘science’, the underlying message was that citizens should exercise agency being proactive about and responsible for their own safety. Based on this interpretation, this

<footnote n="25">²⁵The village mayor himself could not achieve this goal during his time, but it was succeeded to the next mayor who built the monument.</footnote>
study has rephrased the translation to ‘not to rely on “authorities”’.

## 5.2 ‘Be Frightened Effectively’—the Control of Emotion

‘It is easy not to be frightened or to be too frightened of disaster, but it is difficult to be frightened effectively’ (Terada cited in Centenary Committee 2014). It was Torahiko Terada, a seismologist, biologist and poet at the time of the Taisho Eruption, who left this lore. It has been considered as ‘the appropriate framework for disaster preparedness’ in Kagoshima Prefecture because the ability to control fear and anxiety is considered crucial in living with an active volcano. The approach taken in the region for the teaching and learning of the control of emotion is the development of two types of knowledge: the balanced knowledge about the volcano and the correct knowledge about the volcano. The former refers to both the benefits that human beings gain from the volcano and the threats that human beings may receive from the volcano. As an official from a municipal government (Interview 2014) indicated, ‘people have to understand about the volcano. Without knowledge, they will be indifferent or panic. The emphasis should equally be on the understanding of the awe of nature and of the benefits humans receive from nature’.<fnref n="26" /> In terms of the correct knowledge, it refers to the validity and accuracy of the information. A researcher and curator of the prefectural museum argues (Interview 2014) that understanding the volcano should be supported by ‘evidence-based information and education, which is the only effective and appropriate means’. Thus, Terada’s words have been interpreted in the region that having both the balanced and the correct knowledge would enable citizens to make sound judgements preventing false

rumours and mass panic and to co-habit with an active volcano.²⁷

## 5.3 Agency and Knowledge as a Basis for Positive ‘Outcome Expectancy’

It can be considered that the development of agency and the control of emotion, which are the capacity of individuals, would have an impact on outcome expectancy—the individual-level factor in CET. A person with a proactive and responsible attitude is likely to be interested in learning about the volcano and volcanic hazards of the region. If the gained knowledge is balanced and correct, the person will probably build a belief that individual actions can influence her/his own safety. Individuals with such belief tend to show an intention to prepare themselves for disasters, as CET suggests. Conversely, a person who does not have a proactive and responsible attitude is less likely to be interested in learning about local environments and risks. Without the balanced and correct knowledge of the region, the person is apt to develop negative outcome expectancy believing that no individual actions can make difference to personal safety.

## 5.4 Developing Preparedness Through Collaborative Projects

One of the key means of promoting the importance of agency and the control of emotion in the case of SV is through collaborative projects. The Centenary Project was planned and delivered by a committee comprising the Kagoshima

<footnote n="26">²⁶The importance of not starting with the teaching of the dangers of nature has been emphasised by disaster educationalists such as Katada (2012). In tsunami education, he argues that teaching about the sea and its role has to come before talking about a tsunami.

²⁷Fostering both the balanced and the correct knowledge is implemented in for example, ‘Sakurajima and Us [Sakurajima to watashitachi]’, a textbook which was created by a group of researchers at Kagoshima University (2014) for the purpose of disaster education offered at schools in Kagoshima Prefecture. The textbook comprises first, ‘Our Sakurajima’ in which the beauty of the nature and the benefits that the volcano brings are described, and then ‘Knowing Sakurajima and its eruptions’ which explains the mechanism and the impact of eruptions.</footnote>
prefectural and municipal governments, academic experts, museums and libraries, the national and municipal meteorological agencies, the development bureau, the chamber of commerce, the confederation of tourism, neighbourhood associations and the media (Centenary Committee 2014, p. 161). The project included a number of sub-programmes aiming to convey the lessons learned from the volcanic disaster for future generations, and also to raise the awareness of volcanic preparedness amongst citizens.<fnref n="28" /> Those programmes can be identified as kyojo projects based on collaboration amongst a wide range of stakeholders. ‘Kyojo’, which literary means ‘helping each other’, is a policy term widely used in Japan in the area of disaster management and preparedness. ‘Kyojo’ stresses the population’s commitment and cooperation which has to be mobilised in preventing and mitigating foreseen large-scale disasters (Murosaki 2013).

Kagoshima's kyojo programmes were designed to attract a wide audience outside as well as inside the prefecture in the form of informal learning. The programmes ranged from an exhibition of the sketches and the photographs of the Taisho Eruption, to a 160-page documentation of the knowledge and experience of Sakurajima to date. Two programmes are briefly described here as an illustration of the teaching and learning of 'do not rely on authorities' and 'be frightened effectively'. The first programme is 'Creating a stone-rubbing of the Sakurajima Eruption Monument', which aimed to promote an understanding of the inscription discussed earlier through a stone-rubbing of 'The Monument to the Distrust of Science'. One of the participants commented, 'I hadn't known much

about Sakurajima before. Through the stone-rubbing, I have learned about the sad story of the mistake made by the local meteorological agency.... I want to participate in more activities and know more about Sakurajima' (Kagoshima City 2013). 'A stamp rally visiting nine places in Sakurajima' combined tourism with education, including a visit to the 'buried' shrine gate in the Kurokami district.<fnref n="29" /> The chairman of the community association [chonaikai] explained, 'the community members are looking after this buried shrine gate for the memory of the Taisho Eruption. We hope to raise awareness of volcanic preparedness' (Kagoshima City 2013).

The Centenary Project ended in March 2014, leaving a legacy of kyojo projects. For example, a not-for-profit organisation and academics collaborated to set up the Sakurajima Museum, based on the idea of 'ecomuseum' (Fukushima and Ishihara 2004), defining the whole island of Sakurajima as a museum. The museum undertakes research and develops the teaching and learning of the history and ecology of the island. Similarly, Geo Park virtually puts Sakurajima and surrounding bays together and promotes 'the links between the volcano, the people and nature' (Geo Park Committee, n.y.). While promoting tourism, lifelong learning and disaster preparedness, both projects aim to contribute the community building and the economic development of the region. It is considered in Kagoshima that making the most of the benefits of the volcano as well as learning to be prepared effectively for volcanic hazards is the way to achieve 'kyozon'—living with the volcano.

## 5.5 Kyojo Encompassing 'Community Participation' and 'Collective Efficacy'

Linking kyojo with the community-level factors of CET, this paper suggests that 'kyojo' is a notion that encompasses both community participation and collective efficacy. At the community

<footnote n="28">²⁸With the slogan, ‘Let’s rethink the potential of the volcano! Let’s benefit from SV!’, the project included the following sub-programmes: ‘Rethinking SV’, ‘Benefiting from SV’ and ‘Conveying the lessons learnt’. The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI) Conference 2013—Learning from the world, was also one of the sub-programmes. The IAVCEI was an opportunity for volcanologists from different parts of the world to meet in Kagoshima to share and discuss the findings from cutting-edge research.</footnote>

<footnote n="29">²⁹Two-third of the three-metre shrine gate was covered with ash fall and lava from the Taisho Eruption.</footnote>
level, participation was fundamental in the Cen-
tenary Project. The events were developed by
diverse members of the region and participated by
wider communities, aiming to raise awareness
and build the knowledge-base of the general
public. Through community participation, people
were involved in the teaching and learning about
the Taisho Eruption and volcanic preparedness.
Kyojo thus is about community participation.
Kyojo is also about collective efficacy. As iden-
tified in the comparative study by Paton et al.
(2013, p. 29) that examined Kagoshima residents'
preparedness intentions, 'the high frequency of
experience of volcanic hazards in Kagoshima
increases its citizens' familiarity with the hazards
and what works to manage their risk' (Paton et al.
2013, p. 29), which has resulted in the commu-
nity's developing 'building codes, ash removal
practices and community attitudes and prepared-
ness to facilitate continuity of societal functions
during periodic volcanic episodes'. Based on the
assessment of 'what works to manage their risk',
this community has planned 'practices' and
'preparedness'. It is suggested that the notion of
'kyojo' includes such assessment and
decision-making phase, which is identified as
collective efficacy in CET.

## 5.6 Kyojo as a Contributor to ‘Empowerment’ and ‘Trust’

The relationship between kyojo and the
societal-level factors—empowerment and trust—
can be considered as the following. The more
kyojo programmes—the programmes created on
the basis of collaborative partnerships amongst a
wide range of stakeholders—are developed and
delivered, the more empowering and trustworthy
relationships between community members and
authorities would be built. Through collaborative
working, both parties get to know each other,
exchange ideas and information and co-construct
preparedness schemes. The significant point in
the case of SV is that after the Taisho Eruption in
which the islanders who lost their lives following

the village mayor’s instruction, trust in the
authorities must have decreased. As Paton et al.
(2013, p. 22) indicate, ‘people’s perception of the
quality of their (historical) relationship with a
source of information influences their interpre-
tation of the value of information in a way that is
independent of the information itself’. The two
major lessons ‘do not rely on authorities’ and ‘be
frightened effectively’ have played a pivotal role
in the rebuilding of trust in the authority. Today,
Kagoshima citizens have become familiar with
the hazards and how to cope with them. The high
frequency of volcanic hazards has meant the
information provided by official agencies to
guide their preparing has been critical. This was
anecdotally confirmed a number of times while
the empirical fieldwork was undertaken in
Kagoshima. It would be fair to say that the trust
relationship between citizens and the authorities
in the Kagoshima region has been rebuilt since
the Taisho Eruption. The suggestion here is that
the kyojo approach has contributed to the
building of the empowering and trustworthy
relationship.

The SV case appears to have a relatively high
degree of individual, community and societal
engagement in preparedness, although this
hypothesis requires testing. The challenge in the
region is, however, their preparedness also has to
take into consideration an infrequent mega-scale
eruption, which requires evacuation from the
island before the eruption starts. This is the topic
of the next section.

## 6 The Challenge of Living Under the Level 3 Warning

As a result of the volcanic warning Level 3 being
kept unchanged since April 2012, ‘Level 3’ has
become a norm in Kagoshima Prefecture. Being
familiar with small-scale eruptions and ash fall,
the local population are capable of facilitating
‘continuity of societal functions during periodic
volcanic episodes’ (Paton et al. 2013, p. 29), not
markedly changing their daily routines. Such
circumstances could lead to ‘the normalcy bias’,
which was introduced by Omer and Alon (1994, p. 273).<fnref n="30" /> Defined as ‘underestimating the probability or extent of expected disruption’, the term ‘the normalcy bias’ refers to the perception of the authorities during the crisis that ‘it cannot happen to us’ or ‘life will be unchanged, even after a disaster’, resulting in failing to plan for disaster, let alone involving the public in planning for disaster (Valentine and Smith 2002, p. 186). The researchers also identified the so-called ‘abnormalcy bias’, which refers to the authorities’ ‘underestimating victims’ ability to cope with disaster’ (Omer and Alon 1994, p. 273) with a view that ‘the people cannot handle a threat of impending disaster’ ending up in either panic, shock or looting (Valentine and Smith 2002, p. 186).

As indicated by the curator and researcher of the prefectural museum (Interview 2014), in the case of Kagoshima, ‘the normalcy bias’ appears to reside more in the public rather than the authorities. Although further investigation is required to confirm this claim, the point to be made here is that ‘living with an active volcano’ seems to promote the normalisation of ‘the state of alert’, and under such circumstances, there is a risk of people becoming less interested in preparing themselves for a more severe disaster. In other words, Kagoshima residents have high familiarity with preparedness for Level 3 and small-scale volcanic hazards, but that does not necessarily mean they are equally prepared for an eruption of the scale of the Taisho disaster.

## 7 Conclusion

The teaching and learning of and for volcanic hazards, as well as volcanology and seismology have dramatically advanced since SV’s Taisho Eruption of 1914. Applying the individual/ community/societal framework of CET, this paper has discussed a model for ‘living with an active volcano’, with a focus on how the lessons

learned from previous experiences have been utilised in present-day preparedness programmes in the Kagoshima region. The overall argument has been that the SV case can be identified as ‘the integrated model’ endorsed by CET, largely because of their kyojo practices represented in the Centenary Project and the Sakurajima Museum, which incorporated ‘disaster management’ and ‘community development’ through ‘mobilising community resources to facilitate adaptive capacity rather than having institutional decisions imposed upon a community’ (Paton 2008, p. 29). The integrated model entails ‘natural coping mechanisms’ (Paton 2008, p. 29), or in Yamori’s (2012) term, ‘everyday preparedness [seikatsu bosai]’. In developing such ‘built-in’ (Yamori 2010) mechanisms, kyojo becomes critical. This conclusion has been drawn from a qualitative examination of the findings of the SV case against the five factors of CET.

Firstly, at the individual level, the paper has suggested that two principles identified in the SV case form the basis for positive ‘outcome expectancy’. One principle is an emphasis on developing agency so that individual citizens develop ownership in making decisions about their behaviour in emergency situations. This has been expressed by a local lore, ‘do not rely on authorities’. The other is an emphasis on gaining the balanced and correct knowledge of the volcano and volcanic hazards. The knowledge allows one to ‘be frightened effectively’ as other local lore advocates, and also prevents one from being distracted by false information. Positive outcome expectancy is likely to develop in a person who has a proactive and responsible attitude to gain the balanced and correct knowledge.

In terms of the community and societal levels, the paper has demonstrated that ‘kyojo’—colaborative partnerships—plays a significant role. It is suggested that kyojo encompasses both of the community-level factors—‘community participation’ and ‘collective efficacy’. Participation is a prerequisite for kyojo activities. The efficacy of the community to make collective judgements and reach decisions is likely to be developed through collaboration and exchanging of ideas

<footnote n="30">³⁰Their research was in the context of the Gulf War to refer to the response of the authorities to the threat of attacks.</footnote>
and information. It is also suggested that kyojo is
an approach that contributes to the building of
societal-level ‘empowerment’ and ‘trust’
between community members and authorities.

The above analysis requires strengthening by
further researching the relationships between
agency, knowledge and kyojo, and outcome
expectancy, community participation, collective
efficacy, empowerment and trust. Moreover,
clarifying the role of agency, knowledge and
kyojo in linking ‘disaster management’ with
‘community development’ and vice versa is
needed in presenting a concrete picture of how
‘an integrated model’ might look like.

This final part of the paper addresses a specific
kind of challenge that the population in the
Kagoshima region seems to be facing in living
under the continuous Level 3 condition. Even if
the population has a high level of preparedness
for frequent volcanic hazards, whether the same
applies to Taisho-Eruption-scale hazards remains
questionable. Having developed individual
agency, community participation and trust
between citizens and authorities, the population
may be immune to ‘the abnormalcy bias’; how-
ever, a possibility of them growing ‘the normalcy
bias’ appears to be an emerging concern.

**Acknowledgments** This paper was developed on the basis of the findings from the research project, *Critical Infrastructure Failure and Mass Population Response*, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK. I would like to thank all of the interviewees for providing me with important information, and Taichi Kaneshiro of MEXT for his co-operation in arranging the interviews.

**Open Access** This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, duplication, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, a link is provided to the Creative Commons license, and any changes made are indicated. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work's Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt, or reproduce the material.

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# Using Role-Play to Improve Students' Confidence and Perceptions of Communication in a Simulated Volcanic Crisis

Jacqueline Dohaney ID, Erik Brogt, Thomas M. Wilson and Ben Kennedy

## Abstract

Traditional teaching of volcanic science typically emphasises scientific principles and tends to omit the key roles, responsibilities, protocols, and communication needs that accompany volcanic crises. This chapter provides a foundation in instructional communication, education, and risk and crisis communication research that identifies the need for authentic challenges in higher education to challenge learners and provide opportunities to practice crisis communication in real-time. We present an authentic, immersive role-play called the Volcanic Hazards Simulation that is an example of a teaching resource designed to match professional competencies. The role-play engages students in volcanic crisis concepts while simultaneously improving their confidence and perceptions of communicating science. During the role-play, students assume authentic roles and responsibilities of professionals and communicate through interdisciplinary team discussions, media releases, and press conferences. We characterised and measured the students' confidence and perceptions of volcanic crisis communication using a mixed methods research design to determine if the role-play was effective at improving these qualities. Results showed that there was a statistically significant improvement in both communication confidence and perceptions of science communication. The exercise was most effective in transforming low-confidence and low-perception students, with some negative changes measured for our higher-learners. Additionally, students reported a comprehensive and diverse set of best practices but focussed primarily on the mechanics of science communication delivery. This curriculum is a successful example of how to improve students' communication confidence and perceptions.

J. Dohaney (✉) · E. Brogt · T.M. Wilson ·

B. Kennedy

Geoscience Education Research Group, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

e-mail: jdohaney@gmail.com

E. Brogt

Academic Services Group, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

J. Dohaney · T.M. Wilson · B. Kennedy

Department of Geological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
# 1 Introduction

Communicating scientific results and recommendations about natural hazards and disasters into language easily understandable by non-experts is a challenging task in the best of circumstances. During an actual natural hazard event, stress levels are high and considerable pressure is put on scientists and emergency managers to communicate a wide variety of information to each other and many different stakeholders (Alexander 2007; Barclay et al. 2008; Haynes et al. 2008; IAVCEI Task Group on Crisis Protocols 2016; Rovins et al. 2015, p. 56).

Many practicing scientists receive no formal training in science communication (including communication with the public and with media) (MORI and The Welcome Trust 2001; The Royal Society 2006) or public engagement (Miller and Fahy 2009). Additionally, embedded training of science communication in undergraduate degree programmes is uncommon, though specific degrees, minors, or postgraduate degrees are offered in a relatively select few institutions and predominantly within Europe (Trench and Miller 2012). Therefore, dedicated science and risk communication training for undergraduates provides a valuable opportunity to instil the next generation of natural hazard scientists and emergency managers with communication strategies and skills which, if informed by established best practices, will aid them to better serve a society that faces increasing risks from natural and manmade hazards.

This chapter describes a case study about an interactive, challenging role-play designed to train students how to forecast volcanic eruptions, manage the impacts from these eruptions, and communicate with the public throughout the simulated crisis. The chapter also introduces the reader to the foundations of instructional communication, education, and risk and crisis communication research and demonstrates how to evaluate communication training pedagogy with an evidence-based approach.

We argue that role-play challenges students and provides them with practical experience that

they can utilise in their careers. It also improves learner's confidence in their ability to communicate and improves their overall perceptions of risk and crisis communication best practice. We believe the success of the role-play lies in the explicit practicing of authentic communication tasks in a feedback-rich environment and we hope to should encourage instructors to incorporate more authentic tasks into their curricula. We invite our readers to use and adapt this curriculum in classrooms of all levels of formal and informal education.

## 1.1 Why Is Volcanic Risk Communication Training Important?

There is a long history and multidisciplinary approach to research of risk and crisis communication. Corporate crisis communication and public relations (e.g., Grunig and Repper 1992; Crane and Livesey 2003), health risk and crisis communication (e.g., Reynolds and Shenhar 2016), and broader risk communication (e.g., Morgan et al. 2002; Glik 2007) communities have all explored the strategies, philosophies and evaluation of these communications and how differing approaches may influence its success.

In general, these communities have advised that we should move away from the old, linear, 'transmission' form of communication (i.e., 'source' to 'receiver' or the Shannon-Weaver model of communication) towards a participatory approach to work with communities to establish a *dialogue* (e.g., Fisher 1991; Fischhoff 1995) that supports diversity in the needs of the audience (McCroskey 2006) preferably in an unofficial and relaxed setting that helps to build trust between scientists and the public (Haynes et al. 2007). The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction supports this approach, encouraging the sectors of society (i.e., public, private and academic sectors) to work together in a 'people-centred' approach to DRR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015, See point 7, p. 10). This shift is
important for the delivery of risk and crisis communications and highlights the importance of knowing, understanding and connecting with your audience.

Volcanologists play a major role in the dialogue that occurs in the long-term and short-term communication of volcanic risk. Pielke (2007) provides an excellent overview of the particular roles that experts may choose to take when science has the potential to impact policy, politics and the public. He proposes that experts (e.g., medical practitioners, engineers or scientists) can act as an ‘honest broker’ by providing clear options to the person(s) at risk, articulate the specific outcomes, while simultaneously accounting for uncertainties and incorporating the most up to date scientific understanding of the topic at hand.

Essentially, it is our job as scientists to provide clear information to the public on the potential risks that they face from volcanoes. However, as stated above, scientists are rarely trained in communication so the pathways and strategies for achieving this aim is less known. Additionally, there have been very few initiatives that have blended volcanology, risk communication, and education but all of these research areas have much to offer to the teaching of communication in the sciences. This research hopes to bridge this gap and describes a research-informed curriculum that can be used to train future volcanologists in the best practices of volcanic risk and crisis communication.

## 1.2 Instructional Communication Research

Communication is one of the most commonly mentioned graduate attributes for most undergraduate degrees and is also core to the geology profession (Heath 2000; Jones et al. 2010). A quick sample of several university's graduate attribute profiles will show you that communication, in some defined form, is almost always present. Communication was a main focus (i.e., was among the primary goals and outcomes) in all of the courses (see Sect. 2) that featured the

role-play so as part of our efforts to include authentic communication training we undertook a review of instructional communication (i.e., the teaching of communication skills). Here, we share some of what the research community tells us about teaching communication.

Firstly, there are a wealth of studies that advocate for the benefits of learners undergoing some form of communication education. Morreale and Pearson (2008) state that effective communication skills are needed across many disciplines (e.g., sciences, business, engineering or architecture) and helps them to succeed in a range of careers. Morreale and Pearson (2008) also state that communication training encourages global, socially and culturally-aware citizens, including specific areas of global significance allowing our society to make better decisions in areas like health and medicine, crisis management, and policing.

Secondly, effective communication does not come about by simply practicing a speech in front of a mirror. A recent study by Engleberg et al. (2016) compiled the core competencies of communication to assist in building a standardised introductory course in instructional communication. The seven core competencies (listed here, taken directly from Engleberg et al. 2016) shows the reader the diversity of skills that are needed to be an effective communicator:

1. **Monitoring and Presenting Your Self** (i.e., the ability to monitor and present yourself to others within and across a variety of communication contexts);

2. **Practicing Communication Ethics** (i.e., the ability to identify, evaluate, and demonstrate appropriate ethical behaviour within and across a variety of communication contexts);

3. **Adapting to Others** (i.e., the ability to understand, respect, and adapt messages to a diversity of human characteristics and attitudes in order to accomplish a communication goal within and across a variety of communication contexts);

4. **Practicing Effective Listening** (i.e., the ability to listen effectively and respond appropriately to the meaning of messages
within and across a variety of communication contexts);

5. **Expressing Messages** (i.e., the ability to select, demonstrate, and adapt appropriate forms of verbal, nonverbal, and mediated expression that support and enhance the meaning of messages within and across a variety of communication contexts);

6. **Identifying and Explaining Fundamental Communication Processes** (i.e., the ability to identify and explain how specific communication processes influence the outcome of communication interactions within and across a variety of communication contexts);

7. **Creating and Analysing Message Strategies** (i.e., the ability to create and analyse message strategies that generate meaning within and across a variety of communication contexts).

Thirdly, measuring and assessment of communication competence is different from most learning in the sciences and other disciplines. It is a skill that is highly contextualised (See above) and success is in the mind of the receiver(s)/audience(s), that makes it inherently difficult to judge with objective consistency. Determining whether a learner has shown excellence in communication requires observation of the student's performance across a range of situations and contexts. Though these competencies may seem difficult to assess, communication researchers have developed a series of measures that aim to capture some of the many dimensions of communication competency.<fnref n="1" />

Our research aimed to characterise and measure students' *confidence* and *perceptions* of volcanic crisis communication and to determine if the role-play was effective at improving these qualities. This study occurred at the beginning of a longitudinal programme that is exploring a

working model of communication denoted by several dimensions that impact an individual's communication performance: communication *confidence* (discussed here), *perceptions* of science/crisis communication (discussed here), previous *experiences* with communication, and content *knowledge* (i.e., expertise in the topic that is being communicated).

Confidence in one's ability to communicate competently relies on having the knowledge, skills and motivation to communicate (Rubin and Morreale 1996). The knowledge to communicate competently requires learners to select the appropriate information and strategy for the right situation, while the skills come about from having the skills to execute these strategies (Kreps and Query 1990). The motivation to communicate arises from learners choosing to engage after weighing several internal and external factors (e.g., grade incentives; Fortney et al. 2001). Courses in public speaking have been shown to increase student's confidence communicating (Miller 1987; Richmond et al. 1989; Rubin et al. 1997; Ellis 1995). It is worth noting that confidence does not directly translate to effective performance and that overconfidence (e.g., Kruger and Dunning 2009) and compulsive communication (Fortney et al. 2001) can be detrimental to learning and communication. Communication confidence was measured by asking students to self-report their perceived competency to communicate to different receivers and in different contexts (described in Sect. 2).

Another important construct to our study was the perceptions of risk and crisis communication best practice. Perceptions are a selection of attitudes or beliefs that an individual holds and that guides their behaviour. McCroskey (2006) proposes that there are three elements to building communication skills: *desire*, *understanding*, and *experience*. Understanding communication involves knowledge and awareness of the multitude of considerations and strategies that you can employ when crafting and delivering a message. A perceptions survey allows you to check for alignment between the views of the students compared with the views of professionals.

<footnote n="1">¹Please see http://www.jamescmccroskey.com/measures/ for a list of prominent examples.</footnote>
Our curriculum was focussed on teaching students' volcanic crisis communication, and so their perceptions were measured by asking students whether they agreed with a series of statements concerning best practice under these circumstances (described in Sect. 2). Though it should be stated that simply because you hold a 'correct' perception does not mean that you will (a) execute the strategy effectively, or (b) decide to use the strategy when the opportunity arises. Holding expert-like perceptions is only one part of the tool kit for becoming an effective communicator.

## 1.3 Educational Research

Educational research is critical for the development and evaluation of curricula. As our understanding of 'how we learn' becomes more sophisticated, the strategies we use in the classroom allow for more effective learning experiences than traditional, stand-and-deliver teaching. At present, we feel that rigorous education research is an underutilised resource at all levels of volcanology education including formal and informal educational settings.

In practice, curriculum development is often content-driven rather than learning outcome-driven (i.e., focuses on specific aspects of volcanism to cover, rather than on the skills and knowledge that an instructor hopes the students will gain from learning about volcanoes). Additionally, curriculum development is undertaken by academics or secondary school educators who may not be aware of applied volcanology and emergency management practices. Consequently, lessons that are developed may be theory-focussed (not skills-focussed) and lack the authentic challenges that accompany volcanic crises.

Authentic learning focuses on real-world, complex problems and their solutions taught within authentic environments through activity and social interaction (Herrington and Herrington 2006; Lombardi 2007; Herrington et al. 2014). Authentic learning seeks to replicate real-world practices in the classroom including the environment, roles, and responsibilities of

professionals. Role-play is one of the many examples of authentic learning. Other examples include: simulation, role-play, mentoring, debate, case studies, coaching, and reflection (e.g., Brown et al. 1989). Authentic learning offers an opportunity for students to explore communication in its fullest complexity leading to a more befitting assessment of their communication skills.

The effectiveness of role-play and simulation for learning has been reported in a number of studies (e.g., DeNeve and Heppner 1997; van Ments 1999). Simulation is defined as a learning experience that occurs within an imaginary or virtual system or world (van Ments 1999) and 'role-play' as the importance and interactivity of roles in pre-defined scenarios (Errington 1997, 2011). Simulation and role-play require more active participation from students than lecture-based teaching techniques and intend to teach practical and theoretical skills that are transferable to different future situations (Roth and Roychoudhury 1993; Lunce 2006). Research shows that role-play and simulation improve student attitudes towards learning (DeNeve and Heppner 1997; van Ments 1999; Shearer and Davidhizar 2003) and interpersonal interactions (Blake 1987; van Ments 1999; Shearer and Davidhizar 2003), generic transferable skills (problem-solving and decision-making skills (Errington 1997; Barclay et al. 2011), communication skills (Bales 1976; van Ments 1999; Hales and Cashman 2008); and teamwork skills (Maddrell 1994; Harpp and Sweeney 2002), as well as discipline-specific knowledge (DeNeve and Heppner 1997; Livingstone 1999) and volcanic eruption forecasting skills (Harpp and Sweeney 2002; Hales and Cashman 2008).

## 1.4 Risk and Crisis Communication Best Practices

In order to teach students how to communicate about volcanic risk, we must first understand how experts communicate before, during and after volcanic events. The communication of science (more generally) can take on a multitude
<table><caption>**Table 1** Study participants demographics</caption><thead><tr><th>Cohort</th><th>Age (n)</th><th>Gender (n)</th><th>Nationality (n)</th><th>Degree programme (n)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Field-based<br>(23 students)<br>Jan 2012</td><td>19–22 (18)<br>≥ 23 (5)</td><td>Female (8)<br>male (15)</td><td>United States (13)<br>New Zealand (9)<br>Netherlands (1)</td><td>BSc (13)<br>PGDipSci<sup>a</sup> (9)<br>PhD (1)</td></tr><tr><td>Lecture-based<br>(20 students)<br>Aug 2012</td><td>19–22 (7)<br>≥ 23 (13)</td><td>Female (5)<br>male (15)</td><td>United States (1)<br>New Zealand (18)<br>India (1)</td><td>BSc (11)<br>PGDipSci (9)</td></tr><tr><td>All students<br>(43 students)</td><td>19–22 (25)<br>≥ 23 (18)</td><td>Female (13)<br>male (30)</td><td>United States (14)<br>New Zealand (27)<br>Netherlands (1)<br>India (1)</td><td>BSc (24)<br>PGDipSci (18)<br>PhD (1)</td></tr></tbody></table>

Numbers here represent students who participated in the role-play. Some students did not complete all of the surveys in the study

of formats, styles, objectives, and outcomes. Burns et al. (2003) defined science communication as the “... use of appropriate skills, media, activities, and dialogue to produce one or more of the following personal responses to science: awareness, enjoyment, interest, opinions, and understanding of science (i.e., its content, processes and social factors)”. Volcanic risk and crisis communication may include science communication that can be used to educate and promote risk-reducing behaviours to the public (Barclay et al. 2008).

We differentiate between risk and crisis communication using criteria laid out by Reynolds and Seeger (2005; Table 1): *Risk communication* uses messages that focus on reducing the consequences of a known threat (i.e., risk is based on projections and long-term forecasts), occurring prior to an event in frequent or routine communication campaigns, relying on technical experts and scientists to deliver the message; while *Crisis communication* uses messages that focus on information regarding a disruptive event, occurring immediately following and in a response to an event,<fnref n="2" /> relying on authority figures and technical experts to deliver the message. Reynolds and Seeger (2005) promote an integrated model where the scientific community can view communication as part of

an ever-evolving cycle around risk factors that must adapt and match to the situation and context. This allows communicators to approach both risk and crisis communication with a set of tools (i.e., best practices) that must be carefully selected and suit the context and needs of the audience. We welcome this way of thinking, and seek to undertake communication training of students and practitioners within this framework.

For the purposes of teaching, we wanted to have a concise set of best practices that incorporated scholarly work but was comprehensible to our students allowing them to pick them up in the short time frame allocated by our curriculum. A colleague at the University of Otago developed a distinct set of rules for risk and science communication, which was derived from research on media from the Canterbury Earthquake sequence, that she called the 7Cs (Taken from Bryner 2012; Ideas influenced from the 10Cs Weingart et al. 2000; Miller 2008). These best practices were explicitly given to students prior to participating in the role-play, and were a part of the theoretical foundation for the perceptions survey used in this study and is described further in Sect. 2. The 7C’s say that risk and science communication should be:

**comprehensible** (i.e., simple, jargon-free, clear and concise),

**contextualised** (i.e., acknowledges and reflects diversity of your audience),

<footnote><sup>a</sup>Students in the PGDipSci programme were in the first year of their postgraduate studies focussed on Geology and/or Hazards and Disaster Management. Some of these students later upgraded to a MSc thesis</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²We should acknowledge that volcanic events can become a ‘crisis’ even before any eruptive activity occurs.</footnote>
**captivating** (i.e., entertaining, engaging, salient, and relevant to everyday life),

**credible** (i.e., open, does not overpromise, acknowledges uncertainty),

**consistent** (i.e., backed by evidence, confirmable, coordinated and collaborated sources of information),

**courteous** (i.e., compassionate, empathetic and respectful), and

**addresses concerns** (i.e., empowers action and response, forms a dialogue).

We hope that the literature provided in the above sections has helped to prove to the reader that communication and education research communities have much to offer to the teaching of communication skills in volcanology and hazard and disaster management students. These fields provide the underlying framework and foundation (i.e., the stage and theatre) in which the volcanologists and emergency managers (i.e., the characters) will work through a crisis (i.e., the narrative) and avoid a potential disaster (i.e., the climax) in a role-play. To exemplify these theories in practice, we share with you a pilot study of an authentic role-play, training exercise that specifically aimed to improve university-level students' communication skills during a mock volcanic crisis (described in detail, below).<fnref n="3" />

# 1.5 The Volcanic Hazard Simulation

## 1.5.1 Design and Development of the Volcanic Hazard Simulation Role-Play

For some time, training exercises have been used in the emergency management community to simulate real world crises in order to upskill practitioners (Borodzicz and van Haperen 2002). We partnered

with experts in the field (e.g., volcanologists, emergency managers and decision-makers) through action research and interviews to develop an authentic role-play and to deduce best practices in volcanic crisis communication. Additionally, we worked closely with instructors to assess the classroom setting, cultures and logistics to be sure that the role-play suited their needs and fitted into their curricula. Such a process allows for effective curriculum development geared towards learners', instructors' and industry needs and builds relationships within different sectors that supports long-term, sustainable teaching practices, and ensures that the curriculum will continue to be used after the educational specialist is out of the picture.

The Volcanic Hazard Simulation role-play was designed and developed by a team of researchers from the geosciences, hazards and disaster management and education disciplines at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Emphasis in the early phases of the project was placed on developing authenticity of the roles and teams and ensuring that the simulation was successful at achieving the desired learning goals. Evaluation of the simulation indicated that students found the simulation to be a highly challenging and engaging learning experience and self-reported improved skills (Dohaney et al. 2015). Classroom observations and interviews indicated that the students valued the authenticity and challenging nature of the role-play although personal experiences and team dynamics (within, and between the teams) varied depending on the students' background, preparedness, and personality (Dohaney et al. 2015). For a more detailed discussion on the design and development of the Volcanic Hazards Simulation role-play we refer the reader to Dohaney (2013) and Dohaney et al. (2015) and for instructors who are interested in running the role-play in their course, an instructor manual is freely available for educational use online.<fnref n="4" />

<footnote n="3">³The role-play discussed here does not include the risk communication practices that occur over longer time frames or in ongoing volcanic events. The learning goals for our activity were limited to volcanic forecasting, decision-making, and managing community concerns throughout a crisis. For a further explanation of our learning goals and motivations for building this scenario, please see Dohaney et al. (2015).</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴You can find the user manual in two places on VHUB (https://vhub.org/resources/3395; Dohaney et al. 2014) or on SERC (http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/roleplaying/examples/125523.html).</footnote>
Two eruption scenarios have been built and tested. The first is a large explosive scenario based on a VEI6 eruption from Tongariro Volcanic complex eruption (Cole 1978; Hobden et al. 1999) that is modelled on the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruptions (e.g., Wolfe and Hoblitt 1996). The second scenario is an explosive and effusive eruption of the Auckland Volcanic Field that focuses on the science and impacts from monogenetic volcanism in an urban environment. In both cases, the scenarios were chosen as there were existing volcanic monitoring data available to build our models on, and because they had all the pedagogically-relevant stages; from forecasting (that can be denoted by precursors that students could identify), to minor eruption events and results in an exciting, 'blockbuster' climax (major eruption). In the scenario presented here (i.e., the Tongariro scenario), students are presented with real-time, streamed datasets that take the volcano from a quiescent stage, small eruptions (i.e., 'unrest'), and concluding with a very large eruption. The initial design and timeline for the role-play was taken from Harpp and Sweeney (2002) and was subsequently improved through multiple design phases to optimise the exercise and meet the learning goals.

### 1.5.2 What Happens During the Volcanic Hazards Simulation?

The Volcanic Hazard Simulation is designed for 300–400 level (i.e., upper-year) undergraduate science students from geology, natural hazards, disaster risk reduction, and emergency management. The simulation takes 4–6-h and can accommodate between 15 and 40 students. Students are divided into two teams: the Geoscience team and the Emergency Management team. All students have an authentic role that they are required to research prior to participation in the simulation, such as the field geologist, geodesist, public information manager, or the welfare manager, etc.

The students within the Geoscience team interpret the streamed datasets (e.g., ground deformation, gas, seismicity; see Dohaney et al. (2015) for more details) and communicate

science advice to the emergency management team and to the 'public'. The Emergency Management team is responsible for managing the impacts that the volcanic eruption poses to communities and infrastructure. This set-up is adapted from the organisational structure of operational emergency management in New Zealand dictated by the most recent version of the national guidelines (Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management 2009) and this structure is comparable to other emergency management structures used, globally [e.g., the National Incident Management System (Department of Homeland Security 2008)]. It is important to note that the learning goal for the exercise is not to replicate protocols, but to introduce students to the roles and responsibilities in these important events and to improve their skills sets. We emphasise this distinction to the students, and this allows students to free up their cognitive resources to focus on teamwork, decision-making and the communication tasks, rather than perfecting organisational procedures. The simulation is a reasonably fast-paced environment, with events happening in quick succession to mimic the stresses of a real natural hazard crisis.

Students respond to emergency management and the public's information needs via a 'Newsfeed' data stream (i.e., a stream of prompts that replicate common views and needs during a crisis) and communicate to policy-makers and to members of the public (played by facilitators). Students need to be able to adapt both the content and style of the communication appropriately to serve the intended target audience. During the role-play, we included structured communication tasks that incorporate different communication goals, formats, contexts, and receivers (i.e., different audiences):

Students do the following structured communication events or tasks:

1. Media releases (written)

2. Volcanic impact reports (written)

3. Team discussions: Both within the team (intra-team) and between the groups (inter-team) (oral, group)
4. On-the-spot ‘dynamic’ information requests (written and oral, individual and group)

5. Media TV interviews (oral, public)

6. Press conferences (oral, public)

It should be noted that not all students will directly participate in each task, as these are team tasks in which some students will choose to communicate to the class, and others will not. We aimed to model authentic and effective team behaviour that requires the group to manage the incoming and outgoing communications, as well as adhering to the appropriate responsibilities of individual roles (i.e., team leaders typically volunteered to take on more frequent public speaking tasks).

Students prepare for the role-play through several preparatory activities including: a volcanic hazards mapping activity, pre-readings (with content specific to their role), an exercise instruction document (with learning goals, the rules, and flow of communication maps), and a science communication lecture and homework assignment including reviewing the 7C's (described above) that we used as crisis communication 'best practice'. We expect students to be comfortable with the basics of volcanic monitoring and emergency management, but additional introductory lectures are available for revision.

## 2 Methods

The current study explores the evaluation of students' communication confidence and perceptions of crisis communication best practices. Below we discuss the study participants, data collection and data analysis procedures.

### 2.1 Study Participants

Participants (n = 43; Table 1) were recruited from 300- and 400-level physical volcanology and hazards management courses that hosted the Volcanic Hazards Simulation as part of their curricula. The role-play was assessed using a self- and peer-evaluation rubric that accounted

for a small percentage of their grade (~1% of their total grade). Students were mixed cohorts of American study-abroad students and New Zealand students who attended the University of Canterbury. They ranged in gender [female (13) and male (30)], nationality [New Zealand (27), United States of America (14), Netherlands (1) and India (1)], and age [aged 19–22 (25) and >23 years old (18)].

### 2.2 Data Collection

Two iterations of the role-play were tested for communication perceptions and confidence; One role-play was embedded at the end of a 7-day field course (January 2012; n = 23) the other was embedded within a lecture-based course (August 2012; n = 20). The nature of the intervention was slightly different in terms of what was covered prior to the exercise. The Field-based cohort carried out a hazards mapping exercise (studying the volcanology and hazards of Tongariro) and reviewed the best practices of science communication in a short lecture, followed by a media release critique [both of which were assessed for a small amount (~1% of their total grade)] to encourage students to prepare for the role-play. While the Lecture-based cohort received the same science communication lecture but no other activities. These differences in treatment were controlled by course design and allowed the researchers to explore if different treatments of the student groups elicited different communication results.

We used a mixed methods approach in our investigation of the effectiveness of the role-play on science communication using pre- and post-questionnaires that included multiple choice and open-ended questions. The Field cohort was surveyed using hardcopy questionnaires two days before the role-play (Jan 28) while the Lecture cohort was surveyed up to a week prior (Aug 7–13) using email and hardcopies. Both cohorts were surveyed with hardcopy post-questionnaires immediately after the exercise to ensure a high response rate as the study relies on paired data (pre- and post- results).
The questionnaires included several components: the self-reported communication competence instrument (SPCC), a perceptions of crisis communication instrument (PCC), demographics, and open-ended questions.

SPCC is a validated instrument (with a high internal consistency, Cronbach's alpha of 0.92) that measures communication confidence and is guided by the earlier works of McCroskey (e.g., McCroskey et al. 1977; McCroskey 1982). McCroskey and McCroskey (1988) investigated communication competence through self-reported evaluation of one's ability to communicate (i.e., communication confidence). The SPCC instrument considers several dimensions of communication: communication contexts [public, meeting, group, and dyad (or pair; one-on-one)] and receivers of the communication (strangers, acquaintances, and friends). While this measure (and others like it) is not a true characterisation of actual communication competency, it has been used in the discipline to measure gains (i.e., testing of communication competency before and after an intervention) (Fortney et al. 2001) and researchers indicate it is a good predictor of actual communication competence (McCroskey and McCroskey 1988).

The PCC survey (Table 2) was built and piloted for this study. We composed the statements with support from risk communication literature (see Sect. 1), expert views on volcanic crisis communication, and our practices with teaching science communication. The attitudes and beliefs covered by the survey are not exhaustive, but we feel that it covers the common best practices and appropriate behaviours when communicating science during crisis. Further research on the instrument will allow us to refine the statements and to incorporate all the important aspects of science communication. This survey was checked for content validity, but not examined with interview techniques (e.g., Adams and Wieman 2010). The questionnaire also included demographic information and open-ended questions that were designed to gather feedback about the student experience and science communication.

## 2.3 Data Analysis

The SPCC consists of 12 statements (McCroskey and McCroskey 1988) asking the participant to rate their perceived ability to communicate in different situations and contexts (on a 0–100 scale). The higher the total score, the higher the participant's confidence. We changed the phrasing from “competent” to “ability” and used a 5-point scale in our version (very strong ability, strong ability, average ability, poor ability, very poor ability). We felt this phrase change would be more comprehensible to our students. For further information on the design and scoring of the instrument please see the publication noted above.

The PCC instrument is composed of 17 5-point Likert statements (Table 2). Experts were surveyed in a small, convenience sample (n = 7) made of volcanology, emergency management and geology faculty at the authors’ institution to assess expert opinion or ‘the right answer’. The responses to the statements can be collapsed to agree, neutral and disagree, to reduce effects of participants preferring less or more conservative use of agreement/disagreement. The student responses can then be assessed as being in agreement or disagreement with the experts (Adams et al. 2006). Neutral responses are not weighted in the calculation.

SPCC and PCC survey results were analysed using the open source PAST statistics programme (Hammer 2015) to determine potential differences or associations with variables within the dataset. SPCC data are treated as interval and groups (i.e., subpopulations) within the dataset were compared using t-tests and one-way ANOVAs. The individual students’ % agreement scores are interval data and so typical parametric tests were carried out, however the individual statement data (i.e., all students’ responses for one statement) are ordinal data [agree (1), neutral (0) and disagree (−1)] and so were treated with non-parametric tests.

Responses to an open-ended question (Table 3) in the questionnaire were transcribed and coded using qualitative software (ATLAS.ti, Friese and Ringmayr 2011) by the first author. We used
<table><caption>**Table 2** PCC survey results for all students</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th rowspan="2">Statements</th><th colspan="2">Pre-scores</th><th colspan="2">Post-scores</th></tr><tr><th>Frequencies</th><th>%A</th><th>Frequencies</th><th>%A</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">Skills</td><td>1. To be a successful scientist, I need to be an effective communicator. (Expert answer: Agree)</td><td>A(33), N(2), D(1)</td><td><strong>92</strong></td><td>A(38), N(0), D(1)</td><td><strong>97</strong></td></tr><tr><td>16. To be an effective scientist, I need to practice my communication skills. (Agree)</td><td>A(37), N(1), D(1)</td><td><strong>95</strong></td><td>A(38), N(1), D(0)</td><td><strong>97</strong></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="7">Scientists</td><td>2. Using scientific jargon (discipline-specific words/phrases) makes me sound more professional when communicating with other geologists. (Agree)</td><td>A(27), N(5), D(7)</td><td>69</td><td>A(32), N(3), D(4)</td><td>82</td></tr><tr><td>4. I think that using scientific jargon is better for explaining science to geologists. (Agree)</td><td>A(29), N(4), D(6)</td><td>74</td><td>A(32), N(4), D(3)</td><td>82</td></tr><tr><td>11. Using numbers, drawings and probabilities is a good method of communicating scientific principles to other scientists. (Agree)</td><td>A(35), N(2), D(1)</td><td><strong>92</strong></td><td>A(37), N(2), D(0)</td><td><strong>95</strong></td></tr><tr><td>13. When talking to my science colleagues, it is best to assume that they know nothing about my topic. (Neutral)</td><td>NS</td><td>NS</td><td>NS</td><td>NS</td></tr><tr><td>14. When communicating science to other scientists, I think it is best to behave objectively, without emotion or feelings. (Agree)</td><td>A(9), N(13), D(17)</td><td>23</td><td>A(17), N(10), D(12)</td><td>44*</td></tr><tr><td>3. Using scientific jargon makes me sound more professional when communicating with non-geologists. (Disagree)</td><td>A(19), N(10), D(10)</td><td>26</td><td>A(16), N(8), D(15)</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>5. I think that using scientific jargon is better for explaining science to non-geologists. (Disagree)</td><td>A(0), N(3), D(36)</td><td><strong>92</strong></td><td>A(0), N(6), D(33)</td><td>85</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="7">Public</td><td>6. I feel that the public is better left in the dark about the scientific details of a natural hazard event. (Disagree)</td><td>A(0), N(3), D(36)</td><td><strong>92</strong></td><td>A(1), N(5), D(33)</td><td>85</td></tr><tr><td>7. I feel that the public is better left in the dark about the level of uncertainty that scientists have about their data, during a natural hazards event. (Disagree)</td><td>A(2), N(8), D(29)</td><td>74</td><td>A(6), N(10), D(23)</td><td>59*</td></tr><tr><td>8. I think that the public does not need to understand why volcanoes erupt. (Disagree)</td><td>A(0), N(3), D(36)</td><td><strong>92</strong></td><td>A(0), N(2), D(37)</td><td><strong>95</strong></td></tr><tr><td>9. I think that social media (e.g., facebook) is an effective method of communication during a natural hazard event. (Agree)</td><td>A(26), N(6), D(6)</td><td>68</td><td>A(27), N(9), D(3)</td><td>69</td></tr><tr><td>10. When a non-scientist expresses an incorrect statement to the media, I believe that scientists have a responsibility to correct this statement. (Agree)</td><td>A(36), N(1), D(0)</td><td><strong>97</strong></td><td>A(34), N(2), D(3)</td><td>87</td></tr><tr><td>12. Using numbers, drawings and probabilities is a good method of communicating scientific principles to non-scientists. (Agree)</td><td>A(23), N(8), D(8)</td><td>59</td><td>A(26), N(9), D(4)</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>15. When communicating science to the public, I think it is best to behave objectively, without emotion or feelings. (Disagree)</td><td>A(8), N(15), D(15)</td><td>39</td><td>A(8), N(9), D(21)</td><td>55</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>17. When trying to explain a complicated topic, I think an analogy (i.e., a relatable example) can be an effective way to communicate. (Agree)</td><td>A(39), N(0), D(0)</td><td><strong>100</strong></td><td>A(37), N(1), D(1)</td><td><strong>95</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

(N=39). No significant differences were found between the Field and Lecture cohorts. The number of agree (A), neutral (N) and disagree (D) responses are shown as well as the overall % agreement with experts (%A) responses for each statement. Overall, most statements show positive changes, few show negative changes (shaded green rows). Two statements were shown to be statistically different from pre- to post-survey (* symbol). These differences were calculated using the Wilcoxon signed rank test for different medians in paired pre- and post-survey results where $p$ (equals less than symbol) 0.05

content analysis that is defined as the process of using systematic and verifiable means of summarising qualitative data (Cohen et al. 2007). In the first pass of the responses, the researcher identified different units for analysis (individual and separate items). Codes were initially taken as verbatim quotes, to denote, as much as possible, the student's meaning. In a second pass, the results were viewed in a network (i.e., a map that shows all the responses and allows the user to group similar phrases). The items were grouped and categorised together (i.e., units of data into meaningful clusters; Lincoln and Guba 1985),

where like statements could be assigned to code families. The code families were constructed around the act of communication: the *knowledge*, *skills*, and *attitudes*, needed for *actions* (i.e., strategies) to create an *appearance* to lead to successful *outcomes* when communicating. The data were reviewed in a third pass to refine and check for redundancy within and between the code families. 42 student surveys were evaluated, but the question allowed students to respond to as many items as they wanted. Therefore, frequencies of mentions do not represent individual student responses.

<footnote>*Wilcoxon signed rank test for different medians in paired pre- and post-survey results where $p \le 0.05$.</footnote>
<caption>**Table 3** Results from a post-survey (n = 42): Students' perceptions of science communication best practices</caption>

Question (open-ended): List the most important ‘best practices’ (or good methods) of communication that scientists should use when talking with the public.
(Categories are capitalised and bolded; “representative student quote” (n of items); added or altered words are in {})

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Knowledge and skills (7)</strong><br>“Communicate frequently” (2)<br>“Have a format”ª (1)<br>“Know the {correct} information and facts” (1)<br>{Have} general public speaking abilities (1)<br>{Understand} the topic (1)<br>“Refer to the experts” (1)</td><td><strong>Strategies (134)</strong><br><strong>Speech quality (13)</strong><br>“Speak slowly” (3)<br>“Speak clearly” or “Be clear”ª (9)<br>Repeat the information: “repetition” (1)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Attitudes and framing (11)</strong><br>Be sensitive to the public’s concerns: “Be sensitive when correcting false statements” (4)<br>“Be respectful” (3)<br>“Be polite” (1)<br>Be honest about the situation: “Be straight up and honest” (2)<br>“Put a positive spin on things” (1)</td><td><strong>Jargon (35)</strong><br>Explain or define jargon, which is used: “Use some jargon, but explain it” (13)<br>Use jargon appropriately: “Using appropriate jargon” (9)<br>Don’t use jargon: “Not use jargon” (7)<br>“Avoid {using} jargon” (6)<br>Minimise use of jargon: “Minimise technical jargon” (5)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Behaviour (21)</strong><br>Show emotions, as appropriate: “Show some emotion” (6)<br>Don’t show emotions: “Not getting emotional” (1)<br>Engage with the audience: “Put the audience in the scene” (6)<br>Use appropriate body language: “Use good posture” (6)<br>Dress and behave professionally: “Be professional” (2)</td><td><strong>Language and figures (35)</strong><br>“Use analogies” (13)<br>Use simple terminology: “Keep things simple” (11)<br>{Use} simple explanations (4)<br>{Use} numbers and “statistics” (4)<br>“Use examples of everyday things” (3)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Appearance (20)</strong><br>Don’t appear condescending or patronising: “Not being patronising” (7)<br>Be appear confident: “Sound like you know what you’re talking about” (5)<br>Be appear approachable and relatable: “{Be} down to earth” (5)<br>Be appear calm: “Be calm” (2)<br>Be appear authoritative: “{speak} with authority” (1)</td><td><strong>Information quantity and specificity (14)</strong><br>Be concise: “Speaking concisely” (8)<br>Be specific and precise: “{Keep things} precise” (3)<br>“Not going into too much detail…” (2)<br>“Give as much information as possible” (1)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Outcomes (5)</strong><br>Don’t increase panic or the public’s concerns: “Share concerns without increasing panic or public concern” (4)<br>“Make the public feel safe” (1)</td><td><strong>Transparency and uncertainty (6)</strong><br>Explain “what is known and what is not” (3)<br>“Explain what science can tell us and it’s limitations” (2)<br>“Don’t make statements that are not certain” (2)<br>“Back up your observations with data” (1)<br><br><strong>Content (9)</strong><br>Careful wording to avoid panic and fear: “Be careful when using words that might ‘incite’ fear” (4)<br>Explain what is happening: “Explain what we know” (2)<br>Explain why things are happening: “To convey the “why” of the situation” (2)<br>“Consider facts, not opinions” (1)<br><br><strong>Use of visual aids (22)</strong><br>Diagrams (7), maps (5), figures (3), graphs (2), pie charts (1), media (1), charts (1), graphics (1), and drawings (1)</td></tr></tbody></table>

# 3 Results

## 3.1 Improvement of Students’ Communication Confidence

Figures 1 and 2 show changes in students’ self-reported competence (i.e., confidence; SPCC) with communication. In both pre- and post-surveys,

most students fell within the ‘average’ confidence zone, with several students reporting low or high confidence. Altogether, the students showed a positive mean change in confidence (Fig. 1b; Paired t-Test of pre and post-scores, t = -2.07, p = 0.046). An equal number of individuals showed positive and negative shifts in confidence after participating in the exercise, but the largest observable changes were positive (i.e., changes

<footnote>ª“Speak clearly” and ‘be clear’ could be two different aspects, but are presented here together</footnote>
**Fig. 1** Students' self-reported communication competence before and after the Volcanic Hazards Simulation. **a** A plot showing pre-test versus post-test SPCC scores for individual students and the cohorts of which the means are not statistically different. **b** A table showing SPCC basic statistics. Overall, students showed positive and negative changes, but the positive changes were greater, on average

<figure><img src="image_230.png" /><figcaption>(b) Basic Statistics</figcaption></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Field<br>(n = 19)</th><th>Lecture<br>(n = 18)</th><th>All<br>students<br>(n = 37)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Pre-test*</td><td>69 ± 16</td><td>72 ± 15</td><td>71 ± 15</td></tr><tr><td>Post-test</td><td>74 ± 19</td><td>75 ± 9</td><td>74 ± 15</td></tr><tr><td>Change<br>(Post-test - Pre-test)</td><td>5 ± 10</td><td>3 ± 15</td><td>4 ± 13</td></tr><tr><td>n of students showing<br>positive change</td><td>8</td><td>7</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>average positive change</td><td>15 ± 11</td><td>16 ± 17</td><td>15 ± 13</td></tr><tr><td>n of no change</td><td>6</td><td>1</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td>n of negative change</td><td>5</td><td>10</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>average negative change</td><td>-4 ± 2</td><td>-5 ± 4</td><td>-5 ± 3</td></tr></tbody></table>

of >10 points: 8 positive compared to 2 negative). Three 'Low' confidence students showed large positive changes (21, 27, and 42 points). There were no statistically significant differences between the changes achieved by the different cohorts (Unpaired t-Test for same means; t = 0.37, p = 0.71), but the Field cohort did have lower pre-test scores (average of 69 ± 16). Figure 2a shows the changes for all of the students within each SPCC category (Speaking in public, meetings,

groups, or pairs; with strangers, acquaintances, or friends). Overall, the mean changes for the public (5 ± 15) and stranger (7 ± 15) categories were the highest.

We examined the SPCC results for demographic associations with the pre-test scores and changes (Table 1; gender, age, nationality, degree programme, and year of degree programme) as well as curriculum factors [cohort, assigned roles (i.e., data-focussed vs. communication

<footnote>* SPCC is scored out of a possible 100. The higher the score, the more competent the speaker feels. The average values are the mean plus or minus the standard deviation.</footnote>
**Fig. 2** **a** Box and whisker plots of the average change within different dimensions of the SPCC instrument (i.e., communication contexts and receivers) for all students. Note that the highest average change is shown in the public speaking and stranger dimensions that are both emphasised through public speaking tasks within the Volcanic Hazards Simulation.

**b** A plot showing the overall change (pre- and post SPCC) sorted by students who did and did not explicitly participate in public speaking tasks. A comparison of the two groups did not result in a statistically significant difference

<figure><img src="image_231.png" /><figcaption>(b) Participated in Public Speaking Tasks? (Yes, or No)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_232.png" /></figure>

task-focussed) and teams (emergency management or geoscience)]. An interesting relationship surfaced between changes and the pre-test scores and direct participation in the public speaking tasks. Plotting the change scores (post-score minus pre-score) versus pre-test scores showed an inverse relationship (Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient $r = -0.46$; $p = 0.004$); students with lower pre-test scores achieved the

highest changes, and those with the higher pre-test scores achieved the most negative changes. Additionally, we found that students with the greatest individual change in confidence (Fig. 1) participated in the public speaking tasks (i.e., press conferences and media interview) (Fig. 2b; “yes” to participating in public speaking tasks 7.01; “no”: 0.28) although the difference was not statistically significant ($t = -1.63, p = 0.11$).
We would like to explore this affect in the future, with more students and better control over who participates and who does not in the public speaking tasks.

## 3.2 Improvement of Student Perceptions of Volcanic Crisis Communication

Figure 3 and Table 2 shows the results from the pre- and post-survey (PCC) that measured students' perceptions of communicating during a volcanic crisis. On average, the students'

reported statistically significant positive changes (i.e., agreeing with experts) in perceptions (Fig. 3a, b; Paired t-Test, t = -2.07; *p* = 0.046) but individual students displayed both increases and decreases in agreement with experts. More students showed positive (17) or no changes (16) than negative shifts in perceptions (7) after participating in the role-play with the largest observable changes being positive (changes of >10 points; 7 positive, 4 negative).

The analysis of the pre-test scores revealed no significant statistical relationships for curriculum factors and most demographic factors. However, we did find that there was a significant difference

**Fig. 3** Students' perceptions of volcanic crisis communication before and after the Volcanic Hazards Simulation. **a** A plot showing pre-test versus post-test PCC scores for individual students and the cohorts. There was no statistical difference between changes within the different cohorts (Paired t-Test to test for same means; *t* = 0.07, *p* = 0.95). **b** A table showing basic statistics of the perceptions survey. Overall, students showed positive and negative changes, but there were more students who exhibited positive changes rather than negative

<figure><img src="image_233.png" /></figure>

### (b) Basic Statistics

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Field<br>(n = 21)</th><th>Lecture<br>(n = 18)</th><th>All<br>students<br>(n = 39)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Pre-test</td><td>75 ± 11</td><td>73 ± 15</td><td>74 ± 13</td></tr><tr><td>Post-test</td><td>77 ± 11</td><td>76 ± 11</td><td>77 ± 11</td></tr><tr><td>Change<br>(Post-test - Pre-test)</td><td>3 ± 12</td><td>3 ± 12</td><td>3 ± 12</td></tr><tr><td>n of students showing<br>positive change</td><td>7</td><td>10</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>average positive change</td><td>16 ± 13</td><td>10 ± 10</td><td>12 ± 11</td></tr><tr><td>n of no change</td><td>7</td><td>5</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>n of negative change</td><td>4</td><td>3</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td>average negative change</td><td>-10 ± 6</td><td>-17 ± 4</td><td>-13 ± 6</td></tr></tbody></table>
in pre-test perceptions between students who were in the 300-level, versus the 400-level of their university degree programmes (mean score of 78 and 69%, respectfully; Unpaired t-test for equal means $t = 2.18$ and $p = 0.04$).

The changes achieved by students (post-test minus pre-test %) were also examined for curriculum and demographic factors. The cohort, participation in public speaking tasks, year and type of degree programme did not differ. Factors that did differ were: gender (male mean change = 6.7, female = -3.04), age (older students (>23 years of age) mean change = 7.15, younger students = -0.02), nationality (NZ students mean change = 4.30, US students = -1.89), assigned team (Geoscience group mean change = 8.56, EM = -2.3), and assigned role-type (data monitoring-focussed roles mean change = 9.83,

communications-focussed = -0.71). However, these results should be considered with caution as none of these change factors showed statistical significance and there is a high likelihood of interacting and mediating factors (e.g., we cannot isolate some of the variables from one another.).

Lastly, similar to the SPCC scores, we found that the pre-test scores show an inverse relationship to the changes achieved (Pearson's $r = -0.63$; $p < 0.001$). Additionally, as the mean changes for the cohorts and all students were similar for the perceptions survey and the SPCC instrument, we checked for correlations between changes in confidence and changes in perceptions, but only a weak correlation was found and it was not statistically significant (Pearson's $r = 0.30$, $p = 0.07$).

Table 2 illustrates the PCC results broken down by individual statements and grouped together by 'audience'. Changes between the statements within the field and lecture-based cohorts were not shown to be statistically different, and so the combined results are shown. Overall, most statements showed positive changes (i.e., improving the agreement with the experts) from pre to post-survey. In the pre-survey, some statements showed very high agreement with the experts (>90%, statements 1, 16, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 17, bonded). Statement 7 and 14 showed statistically

significant changes from pre to post-survey (Wilcoxon signed rank test, for ordinal data; agree = 1, neutral = 0, disagree = 1 with experts; paired data; $p < 0.05$). Overall, students had positive changes within the 'skills' and 'communication with other scientists' dimensions, but some negative changes on statements within the 'communication with the public' category. This was surprising, as we were specifically aiming to improve their perceptions of communication with the public. However, a closer look shows that several of the individual statement's negative shifts were from very high values of agreement with experts where the majority of students who agreed with experts shifted into the neutral category (i.e., were questioning their perception). It should be noted here as well, that when 100% of the students agree with experts it can cause a 'ceiling effect', where scores cannot go any higher and can limit the statistical analysis of these results.

## 3.3 Best Practices of Science Communication

A central aim of the role-play is to enhance students' communication best practices. In a post-survey, students were asked to "list the most important 'best practices' of communication that scientists should use when talking to the public" (Table 3). No significant differences were discovered of the item frequencies between the field and lecture cohorts, and so the results from both groups are presented as a whole. Students views are comprehensive (covering many aspects), but the frequency of items shows a focus on the strategies of communication (134 mentions; e.g., use of jargon, use of analogies, use of visual aids) rather than on how the speaker appears (20), their behaviour (21) and the outcomes of the communication (5). There were a couple of examples of potentially divergent responses within a couple of the categories. For example, in the appearance category, students report that it is important to appear approachable and relatable (5) but another reports that it is important to appear authoritative. Another important example is that students felt it was appropriate to show
emotions (6) but another student stated not to. The jargon category was quite popular, and students mentioned a range of recommended approaches including "not using jargon whatsoever", to using it "appropriately".

# 4 Discussion

## 4.1 Improvement in Students' Communication Confidence

The overall statistically significant positive changes on the SPCC results (Fig. 1) indicate that the role-play was effective in improving students' communication confidence. Figure 2 showed that the public speaking and stranger (i.e., speaking with strangers rather than someone you know) dimensions were the most positively affected and this result aligns with the learning goals of the role-play (i.e., to improve students' crisis communication skills). Positive changes achieved by students were substantial, however, there were equal numbers of students with small negative changes, and some with no change. This indicates that the role-play may be effective in improving student confidence for some more than others. Changes likely occur when students re-evaluate their abilities based on the performances during the role-play (of themselves and others) and either increase or decrease their confidence in communicating. Research has indicated that self-reported competency (i.e., confidence) is diminished when there are some peers who are compulsive communicators (i.e., dominant and frequent talkers), meaning less frequent speakers may not assess their merit as highly in comparison to their classmates (Fortney et al. 2001). Though we did not survey for compulsive speakers, all cohorts included some frequent and dominant speakers and that aspect could have potentially negatively influenced some student's appraisals of their own abilities. To reduce peer comparison effects, some scholars suggest encouraging students to focus on one's own progress (i.e., self-comparison), rather than comparing their performance with others, thereby reducing social comparison effects (e.g., Luk et al. 2000).

The change in scores can also potentially be attributed to (positive or negative) feedback provided by instructors and peers during the role-play. Feedback (i.e., self-, peer- and instructor feedback) is vital for communication improvement (e.g. Maguire et al. 1996; Maguire and Pitceathly 2002) and it is likely that some of the participants received more meaningful feedback (i.e., explicit guidance on how to improve and what to consider) during the simulation than others. Additionally, some students may shy away from perceived criticism which could result in negative self-appraisals.

It is worth noting that the SPCC scale and other communication instruments (e.g., PRCA-24; McCroskey et al. 1985) were designed and typically used to record longer interventions (over semesters rather than after one, multi-hour event). Some students in this study reported changes of ~2–5% shift, while changes in competency from an entire semester of communication class (e.g., Rubin et al. 1997) resulted in similar magnitude of change. We propose that even small changes may be influential in a student's communication confidence over time and that the role-play has been shown here to have similar effects when compared to longer treatments.

Based on the divergent change results, we checked to see what factors may be influencing the individual student's experiences in different ways. A plot of the change scores versus pre-test scores revealed an inverse relationship (Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient $r = -0.46$; $p = 0.004$) where students with lower pre-test scores achieved the highest changes, and the higher pre-test scores achieved the most negative changes. This indicates that this exercise is particularly effective at improving student confidence for those with mild communication apprehension. This relationship also indicates that our higher confidence students are becoming less confident. This may be due to a lack of accurate 'benchmarks' for effective competence, in that students with less academic maturity/experience may be overestimating their ability to communicate, and when confronted with a challenging exercise, may have a more realistic assessment of their abilities when compared to other students.
There were no notable differences in demo-
graphics (age, year of study, gender, nationality,
etc.) in contrast to prior communication research
that reports that males tend to have higher confi-
dence in transferable skills and communication
than females (Lundeberg et al. 1994; Whittle and
Eaton 2001; Donovan and MacIntyre 2004) and
that people from different cultures and nationalities
are more confident with public speaking than others
(Lundeberg et al. 2000). We did not observe these
attributes in our study population, however the total
sample size was small (n = 37) and these factors
may only become apparent with larger groups.

There was no statistical difference in changes
between the two cohorts, and for the different
roles and teams. This indicates that regardless of
the learning environment, the extent of the
intervention, or the assigned roles and team (i.e.,
the specific tasks) the affect was equal on stu-
dents' confidence. However, as noted in Fig. 2,
students who directly participated in the public
speaking tasks (i.e., press conferences and media
TV interviews) showed more positive changes
but this may be due to self-selection (i.e., stu-
dents who volunteered to speak for the team may
be less public-speaking averse than those that
passed on the opportunity).

In the future, we may use a more equitable
and structured approach to participation in the
public speaking tasks (i.e., where all roles are
noted and ‘called on’ by the facilitators or team
leaders to speak), but presently we did not want
to force students to participate. This approach
may encourage students to overcome their per-
ceived aversion to public speaking and improve
their confidence. It should be noted that the
treatment was not set up to specifically control
for students participating in the public speaking
tasks and future research will explore this vari-
able further.

## 4.2 Student Perceptions of Best Practice in Volcanic Crisis Communication

Two datasets were considered to explore stu-
dents’ perceptions of crisis communication best

practice: the PCC instrument (Table 2 and
Fig. 3) and an open-ended question (Table 3).
Overall, the PCC results students showed posi-
tive perception changes (i.e., increases in percent
agreement with experts; Fig. 3) and more indi-
vidual positive changes than negative changes,
with some students achieving large shifts of >10
points. This indicates that the role-play was
effective in enhancing students’ perceptions
(becoming more expert-like).

The data shows that the 300-level students
had higher pre-test scores than 400-level stu-
dents. This is separate from nationality, age, and
cohort (which showed no differences) indicating
that there is an element of academic maturity/
experience that is having an effect on their initial
perceptions. It is not possible at this stage to
differentiate specific reasons why these levels of
students had different pre-test scores and will
explore it further in our future work.

Overall, several factors (curriculum and
demographic) may be impacting the amount of
changes in student perceptions: gender, age,
nationality, assigned team and role-type though
these differences are not statistically significant
and we did not observe (i.e., noted during
observations of the role-play) distinguishing
affects during the role-play. However, given the
likelihood that these factors may be interacting,
and that mediating variables (such as group
socio-dynamics) might be present, causal infer-
ences are difficult to make. A larger sample and
more controlled design could plan for these
factors.

However, the changes in perceptions associ-
ated with assigned role and team could potentially
be due to group dynamics. The exercise is chal-
lenging with complex social dynamics within the
teams and between. The Geoscience team (pre-
dominantly data-focussed students) had higher
changes than the EM team. This is surprising, as
these students are more concerned with data
analysis and interpretation than the other team,
because this group focuses on receiving science
advice and prioritising and communicating
impacts of the volcanic crisis. However, the per-
ceptions survey is focussed on the *communica-
tion of science*, and not specifically on advice and
actions for the public. It is likely that the Geo-
science teams discussed the nuances of science
communication at a deeper level than the EM
team. This is important consideration when con-
sidering your evaluation of these exercises (Does
your measure/instrument suit one context over
another?).

Results from Table 3 show that students illustrated a comprehensive view of the strategies that you should employ when communicating science, but focussed more on the mechanics of communicating (i.e., the How To's). This indicates that our participants understand that there are many things to consider when communicating, appreciating the complexity of the task. The responses are all consistent with up to date approaches in rhetorical communication in instructional communication texts (e.g., McCroskey 2006). The frequency of mentions that focuses on the mechanics of science communication is not surprising, given their level of academic maturity and previous experiences (i.e., learning the initial skills, before moving on towards more sophisticated elements of the trade). The lesser but somewhat divergent responses (i.e., 'appear authoritative' vs. 'appear relatable') is additional evidence for students valuing different approaches to best practice. The undergraduate teaching community should be assured that students need to walk before they can run, and acknowledging where they are in their communication training can help them to understand where they should aspire to be (i.e., considering more situational aspects of communication). The volcanology community can benefit from this finding in that it may be important to acknowledge that practitioners may also hold divergent views on what is best practice, and that organisations would benefit from discussing the merits of specific approaches in specific circumstances. The risk and crisis communication community has much research for almost each individual statements in Table 2 specific areas [e.g., topics like uncertainty (e.g., Hudson-Doyle et al. 2011) and the importance of building and establishing trust through communication (e.g., Haynes et al. 2007)] and applying a one-dimensional approach to crisis communication is not advised.

It should be noted, that this perceptions survey is a pilot version and it has not yet been rigorously validated. Current research on a new version indicates that some of the statements may be asking about more than one concept (e.g., "Using *numbers*, *drawings* and *probabilities* is a good method of communicating scientific principles to other scientists"). New results from experts indicate that they may confuse some statements in terms of what is intended by the approach, versus its' effectiveness. Meaning that some strategies or perceptions may be valid in theory, but may not be helpful in practice (e.g., disclosing all of your results to show transparency, versus disclosing only the most important results to create a coherent message to the public). These ideas are somewhat opposed and in conflict with one another, causing a tension for the communication to overcome. Additionally, our list of perception statements is not exhaustive. There is such a diversity and complexity to communicating during crisis and that is evident in the student responses in Table 3. However, it becomes difficult to capture this complexity in a series of closed statements. Further research into student and expert perceptions through interviewing techniques will allow us to characterise risk and crisis communication best practice.

Further work will validate our measure of
communication perceptions (i.e., further refine the
instrument and comprehensively define crisis
communication best practice with the help of
experts and practitioners), and focus on assess-
ment of all of the above dimensions to ascertain
the relationship *between* factors that lead to suc-
cessful communication performance. If we know
pedagogical factors influences a student's ability
to learn about crisis communication, then we can
provide practical suggestions to improve the
teaching of communication in the classroom. We
would also like to investigate risk and crisis
communication in alternate natural hazards sce-
narios (e.g., earthquakes, Dohaney et al. 2016 and
hydroelectric dam failure) to help students diver-
sify their approaches to risk and crisis communi-
cation. Additionally, we would like to develop
volcanic scenarios over longer mock time frames
(e.g., following a community engagement
initiative as it progresses through stages of learn-
ing about volcanic risk) to help students under-
stand that risk communication occurs through all
stages of the 4 R's and cultivating relationships
with communities provides the foundation for
making crisis communication possible.

## 4.3 Implications for the Teaching of Volcanic Crisis Communication and Future Work

In this final section, we would like to share with
the community some lessons learned from our
use of training exercises and teaching about
communication, as well as outline our future
research into the measurement of communication
performance.

The use of training exercises is not uncommon
in the emergency management sector, however, it
is less used in formal education settings because of
the significant time investment that goes into
building an authentic scenario, organising a robust
curriculum plan, and evaluating and testing whe-
ther it is effective. We believe an evidence-based
approach to the building and testing of such cur-
ricula should include specialists in education and
communication research. A partnership among
these professionals allows content experts (i.e.,
volcanologists and emergency managers) to learn
about pedagogy of training exercises and the art of
evaluating such complex learning activities. Input
from communication researchers can further
enhance the inclusion of specific communication
contexts and tasks, as well as help to guide
instructors and students in delving deeper into
how messages are constructed and received by
diverse audiences. In our case, previous research
into the design of this exercise (Dohaney et al.
2015) meant that we could move away from the
intricate task of 'tweaking' our exercise and look
at the impact that it has had on our students'
abilities to communicate. Such alliances create
powerful and engaging learning experiences that
create memorable and lasting influence on stu-
dent's ongoing career development.

The results discussed above illustrate that the
Volcanic Hazards Simulation has influenced our
student's perceptions and confidence with com-
municating during a mock volcanic crisis. But,
does this translate to transferable communication
skills moving forward? What we do know is that
often knowledge and awareness of best practice
(i.e., 'expert-like' perceptions) is the first step
towards utilising these communication beha-
viours and strategies (e.g., McCroskey 2006).
And what about communication confidence? Do
our high confidence students actually communi-
cate more effectively? Recent research by Kruger
and Dunning (2009) suggests that overconfi-
dence and ignorance are not a good thing, how-
ever, students with high confidence paired with
expert-like perceptions of crisis communication
best practice have the tools at their disposal, we
hope that as they move forward in their careers
they can continue to practice and improve, ulti-
mately leading to better crisis communication
practitioners (should they choose to follow that
career path).

# 5 Conclusion

Our study set out to examine whether an
authentic volcanic crisis role-play could improve
students' communication confidence and their
perceptions of science communication. In the
role-play, students challenged themselves and
moved outside of their 'academic comfort zone'
when required to rapidly synthesize new infor-
mation and communicate the information to dif-
fering stakeholders and in different formats. On
average, our results indicate that the role-play
does improve both confidence and perceptions
for our students. In particular, this exercise is
most effective for students who have low confi-
dence and low perceptions of communicating
science. Students with improved and high con-
fidence in their abilities are more likely to engage
in communication experiences (McCroskey et al.
1977), which leads to further improvement, so
even a small number of positive shifts in confi-
dence are a success.
However, some students showed both positive and negative changes in confidence and perceptions. Negative appraisals of confidence may be due to peer comparison effects and negative perceptions shifts may be due to shifting from agreeing with experts to neutral responses (i.e., questioning their current perceptions). In future work, we will try and minimise negative experiences and increase the positive experiences for all students. There were no significant differences with regard to students' confidence and perceptions between the cohorts indicating that despite slightly different intervention (one more extended than the other) students achieved positive changes. This indicates that role-play as a standalone part of an instructor's curriculum is flexible enough to accommodate different schedules while still reaching its outcomes.

Results from the open-ended question show that our students illustrated a comprehensive range of views on the best practices of science communication, but focussed primarily on the mechanics of delivery, which is unsurprising as most students are still relatively inexperienced and are continually developing these skills. New scenarios for earthquakes will be tested to improve on our findings. This approach to learning skills through authentic challenges builds confidence and resilience in undergraduate students who are likely to become a part of the geologic and emergency management community.

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<figure><img src="image_234.png" /></figure>
# Learning to Be Practical: A Guided
Learning Approach to Transform
Student Community Resilience When
Faced with Natural Hazard Threats

Justin Sharpe ID

## Abstract

This chapter seeks to explore how creative use of educational resources can challenge students to take responsibility for their own preparedness and safety in response to natural hazard risks. A brief context for the need for learning-focused rather than education-focused curriculum is explored before the England and Wales context is brought into focus. Two methods for transforming learning around the theme of natural hazard risk and response are offered: A film project in which students produce films by and for children and youth and a ‘Go-Bag’ project in which students take on a practical task of making up a real emergency bag. By guiding student learning, but allowing it to develop inside a reasonable framework, student learning was not only deeper on a cognitive level, but also allowed students to understand their own roles and responsibilities in responding to natural hazard threats. The combination of both is explored through the use of an online questionnaire (n = 176) in which the impact of the learning on students and their families are explored. The classroom and individual learning activities’ impact on student efficacy are discussed alongside the results from the questionnaire. Findings included support for prior assumptions about the impact of school-based learning on the family with regard to disaster preparedness as well as deeper cognition regarding the risks and increased self-efficacy in students. The implications for these findings and their role in transforming learning to enhance community resilience that starts with the family are discussed with the door to future research nudged open.

## 1 Introduction

Education for disaster risk reduction and resilience was a central tenet of the Hygo Framework for Action which ran from 2005 to 2015 (HFA 2005),

<footnote>J. Sharpe (✉)
Department of Geography, King's College London,
London, UK
e-mail: justin.sharpe@kcl.ac.uk</footnote>
and during which time, the classroom activities outlined in this chapter took place. The HFA was itself, partially drawn up in response to the number of losses and damages wreaked by disasters on human populations and the environment. A key tenet of the HFA involved the use of: ‘knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety’. It is argued here that this was based on an assumption that if individuals have the ‘appropriate’ knowledge and education, a culture of safety will follow. However in practice, information alone is insufficient to lead to action (e.g. Kolmuss and Agyeman 2002, Demos/Green Alliance 2003, Talbot et al. 2007) leading to a Value Action Gap (Blake 1999).

Consequently, there is a strong argument that learning is an essential starting point for allowing resilient individuals and communities to develop. The term ‘learning’ is purposefully used here. The definition of learning taken, is one in which the outcome leads to: ‘a change in knowledge, beliefs, behaviours or attitudes that is the result of experience’ (e.g. Ambrose 2010). Moreover, learning is also understood to be both experiential and socially constructed with the power to become transformative when learners are challenged and given the expertise, knowledge and time for reflection (Sharpe 2016).

Further research by Sharpe and Kelman (2011), notes that in relatively affluent places such as England, doubt about the effectiveness of particular measures, lack of belief in one's personal ability to carry them out and apathy in considering a situation deemed to be unlikely to occur, provide a number of obstacles to successful education and learning regarding DRR, something supported by other researchers (e.g. Lindell and Perry 2000; Mulilis and Duval 1995; Ronan et al. 2001).

Overcoming such barriers can be helped by drawing on a body of pedagogical research that indicates that experiential learning has the potential for motivating people to action (Dewey 1938; Kolb 1984). Much of the impetus for experiential learning has come as a reaction to overly didactic, teacher-controlled learning. Assumptions about learning from experience are that experience provides the foundation of, and

the stimulus for learning; that learning is a socially and culturally constructed process influenced by the socio-emotional context in which it occurs; and that learners actively construct their own learning experience (Boud et al. 1993). Those assumptions have been challenged through critical analysis of experiential learning theory (e.g. Fenwick 2001) but the theory has then been extended and reworked to try to overcome those challenges, such as for management learning (Kayes 2002).

Consequently, activities that allow for the experiential and explorative learning, might be more meaningful at transforming the views, attitudes and behaviours of students. Furthermore, other researchers examining the impact of hazards education on children in formal education have assumed that there is some form of transmission to family and the wider community (Gordon et al. 1999; Peek 2008). However, this has not been widely tested or reported while, moreover, parents might not be engaged in the learning in the same way as their child. This has the potential to undermine school learning and is why it has been argued that it is important that students of school age have access to: “information that helps a child understand what he or she can do relatively independently to be prepared physically and emotionally” (Ronan and Johnston 2003, p. 1011). As a result, the curriculum by the author of this chapter was developed with the intension of addressing these issues, while making the learning fun, engaging and useful for students, who are shrewd observers and assessors of what is relevant to them.

This chapter therefore outlines how the curriculum was developed and employed to improve communication of hazards in general, including those of a volcanic nature to both children and by extension their family and the wider community. It does this by detailing how the curriculum was designed and delivered in a manner that allowed for guided learning that permitted students to explore key issues of risk, response and preparedness for themselves and their family. Furthermore, it provides evidence of how students developed self-efficacy (belief in their ability to carry out a task) through a curriculum that married
guided learning with practical tasks. It is argued that this engaged students in disaster learning, while enabling them to become agents of change in their community, starting with their family as suggested by other researchers (e.g., Gordon et al. 1999; Peek 2008), but not widely tested. The curriculum development and subsequent research methodologies outlined below have strong roots in prior pedagogies for tackling disaster risk reduction education. These have been expanded upon through the development and use of novel and engaging teaching and learning. This includes practical approaches to embedding critical reflection as a way of strengthening understanding of hazard risks (including volcanic ones) and appropriate responses to them. It is contended that this creative and guided learning, opens up avenues of understanding that can make crisis communication more readily accepted and acted upon by the wider community, building outwards from school based education to engage students and their families.

## 2 Disasters and Geography—The UK Context

The study of school Geography in the United Kingdom is governed by the National Curriculum, which sets out what must be studied, but not the format or style of delivery. At key stage three (11–14 years of age) students are regularly assessed on their progress via a means of testing, essay writing, or project based homework in order to ascertain a National Curriculum Level mark. However, although this tests knowledge, understanding and retention of facts/figures, it does not allow for all learning styles to be accommodated, nor does it test for learning or a change in attitude or behaviour, which is often the goal of disaster risk reduction and resilience educators. (e.g. HFA 2015).

Disasters themselves can be included in curriculum, but often take a top-down approach of response or governmental planning approach to the mitigation of tectonic hazards in particular while not allowing for the roles and responsibilities of the individual to come to the fore (e.g.

Sharpe and Kelman 2011). The following section outlines how a curriculum was planned and executed in response to this gap.

## 3 The School Context

The activities outlined here, were developed for students in early high school (aged 11–14; known in the UK as key stage 3) for inclusion in mainstream natural hazards focused geography lessons. The teaching activities, learning outcomes and survey were all carried out at Beal High school, Ilford, Essex, while the author was working as a teacher of geography.

The school’s ethnic mix at the time was approximately 65% Southern Asian origin (Indian, Pakistani and Bengali), with the children often the first generation born in the UK; 25% White (including those from across Europe) and 8% Afro-Caribbean and approximately 2% of Chinese origin. Many of the children of South Asian origin visited areas of the world where tectonic and hydro-meteorological hazards were both more frequent and of a higher magnitude and yet were unaware that these dangers might present themselves when visiting grandparents and other family in their parents’ country of origin. This was a primary concern when setting out the curriculum.

The lessons were planned in order to fit within the National Curriculum while encouraging exploration through provided mediums such as web sites, video and mapping exercises, experimentation through the creation of student films and learning by doing, which allowed for real emergency ‘Go-Bags’ to be produced as part of a homework task. The students followed a unit of the geography curriculum (approximately eight to nine weeks) called ‘Dangerous Geography’ in which the geography of hazards, response and preparedness were to be explored.<fnref n="1" /> This was

<footnote n="1">¹A complete description of the Unit 1 ‘Hazards and How to Prepare for Them’ module, lesson plans and resources can be found on the authors website, created to help teachers and educators find creative and effective ways of engaging children of all ages in hazards education. This can be viewed at: http://www.edu4drr.org/page/curriculum-1.</footnote>
primarily carried out in year seven (11–12 year olds) while future learning in year eight (12–13 year olds) addressed the scientific aspects of plate tectonics, earthquakes and volcanoes. This allows for learning to be built slowly rather than attempting to cram everything together in one unit that students become tired of.

## 4 The Approach

Being a classroom practitioner allowed me to take an action research approach while forming and developing curriculum and pedagogies as part of my ongoing professional practice. This afforded a unique perspective, in so much as allowing the author’s pedagogical approach to being a reflective practitioner with regards to curriculum development and delivery, to sit alongside that of a researcher whose role is more analytical in observing and evaluating the various nuances of learning and their role in changing cognition and behaviour towards disaster risk.

The research decision to collate data was not made when the curriculum was initially in development, but when the curriculum had been running for two years. This allowed for a period of ‘bedding in’ of the curriculum with small tweaks made in collaboration with departmental colleagues in order to have a greater impact on knowledge and understanding that might unlock deeper learning. The decision to initiate a questionnaire was taken to inform our teaching practice by capturing the impact of the overall curriculum in terms of preparedness and efficacy of response of children and their families. The study was a pilot study, in that although the curriculum had been taught through several times, there was only one set of data collected (n = 175) at the time as the author moved on the following year. The use of data collection via an online survey was agreed with departmental staff as well as senior management in the school. It was agreed that an online format questionnaire would allow students to retain anonymity, permitting them to be honest with their feedback. The questionnaire therefore served a dual role: on

the one hand it allowed teaching professionals to evaluate the impact of the curriculum in order to continue to develop, it, while on the other hand it allowed for research into wider issues of impact on family preparedness that have been assumed, but not more widely investigated.

The author was the primary researcher. There were no other researchers in a formal sense, but discoveries, information, lessons learned were shared informally by the other geography teachers (there were three others) within department meetings, but also on a day-to-day basis during break or lunch times. This is an important and neglected area of learning—the contribution of informal feedback with colleagues that allow for curricular to be honed, improved and extended to allow for deeper level learning. This shows the importance of informal socially constructed learning that takes place among reflective practitioners in the teaching of geography.

In particular, this might be viewed as a type of as social learning, of which there are many different descriptions, but the one used here is what McCarthy et al. (2011) summarised as an on-going, adaptive process of knowledge creation that is scaled-up from individuals though social interactions fostered by critical reflection and the synthesis of a variety of knowledge types that result in changes to social structures (e.g. organizational mandates, policies, social norms). In this case, it would mean the tweaking of the curriculum to help students engage with it more readily or to adapt certain parts for students with different competencies of literacy and numeracy or other cognitive needs.

The curricula was created and shared by myself with the other teachers in the department and advice was offered and support given when teachers were challenged by any of the activities. Each teacher followed the curricular as lesson plans and resources were provided and talked about prior to delivery. The questionnaire was deemed to be a reasonable way of allowing the department to ascertain the impact on cognition over a longer time, rather than just after a test or other formalised evaluation. The questions were shared with the other teachers and they were given access to the questionnaire prior to it going
live and students asked to complete it three weeks following the last lesson in the ‘Dangerous Geography’ unit of work.

## 5 Methods

There were 246 students that this particular study assessed as part of an evaluation of the effectiveness of curriculum based methods for learning how to acknowledge, respond to and prepare for a range of hazards, including those of a volcanic nature. During the filming stage all students participated in the storyboarding, filming and editing of films. Students were split into groups of five or six to achieve this task and while some students were more assertive on the filming tasks, others were more so on the planning or editing phases. This allowed for students with stronger skillsets, talents and learning styles (Gardner 1993, 1999) to develop roles that they felt comfortable in while also challenging others to learn new skills and develop communication and team-working skills as part of the learning process.

Approximately 40 videos were produced in total, but only a small number (12) were added to the YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/edu4hazards) as these were deemed to be accurate in their advice and representation of the correct behaviours and actions.

All students (246 = total) were asked to complete a survey three weeks following the end of the unit of work, in order for them to have time for reflection as well as attempting to ascertain how much had been retained (not just mentally but physically in terms of emergency Go-Bags and their role in family life). 175 students out of 246 (71%) completed the online survey, which was completed at home or in the school library if internet access was not available at home. This was chosen for ease of answering the questions, as well as to limit bias by having a teacher nearby or looking over student shoulders when they carried out the survey. The questions were also asked at random, rather than in the same order each time so that if students worked together on laptops when at a friend’s house they

would find it harder to crib from their friend’s answers.

## 6 The Lessons

A complete description of the Unit 1 ‘Hazards and How to Prepare for Them’ module, lesson plans and resources can be found at: http://www.edu4drr.org/page/curriculum-1. However a brief outline is given below in order to provide context for this approach as a method for engaging and developing the minds of adolescents for learning to cope with the dangers of a variety of hazards (Fig. 1).

In lesson one, students identified a number of hazards from a word puzzle while the differences between hazards and disasters were explored, before examining a video about Hurricane Katrina in which students learned what was known before and what occurred afterwards in order to explore the impact of humans in the causation of disasters. Following a mapping exercise of disasters in the USA in lesson two, lesson three introduces the concept of how geography can save lives. Students examined the example of Tilly Smith, an English school girl who was the same age as them when she recognised the signs of a tsunami in Thailand and warned her parents who alerted hotel staff and evacuated the beach in 2004, saving many lives. Subsequently, time was given over to what an emergency Go-Bag might be, what it might contain and what could and should be included in their own one. This lesson and subsequent individual ‘thinking and doing’ tasks are laid out as a separate case study in this chapter.

The lessons following this allowed for student creativity and exploration to become part of the learning process as students storyboard, planned, filmed, edited and presented their films to the class. This took place over three one-hour lessons and the principal guidance was that students must take information from the edu4hazards.org website, created by Sharpe (2007), (see Fig. 2) which was researched and cross-checked with sources such as the International Federation of Red Cross websites and publication (IFRC 2013)
<figure><img src="image_235.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1** Film still from student film about what to do in case of a volcanic eruption</figcaption></figure>

and other factually reliable websites in order for the most current information regarding appropriate responses to a range of hazards to be included.

The learning material supporting the edu4-hazards website allows for a variety of learning strategies to be utilised to allow students to engage with the material in different ways (Sharpe and Kelman 2011). Furthermore the production of the films was to ascertain the level of knowledge and understanding about the hazards, risk and response, with students informed that films with misleading or inaccurate information could not be shared on the YouTube channel. It was explained that films would be evaluated by their peers for accuracy, creativity and usefulness to others.

Following these lessons a further set of six to eight one hour lessons examined flood causes, risk and response, and preparation, as this was considered to be most relevant to a local context, with the nearby River Roding having flooded in

the past with relative frequency (10–20 years). At the end of the entire *dangerous geography* unit the students were tested using an end of unit examination with overall grades moderated and decisions made about grade boundaries and how these might equate to National Curriculum levels.

## 7 Case Study 1: The Volcanic Hazard Films

Students were allowed to work with their friends and decided for themselves what hazards interested them most. Some demonstrated an interest in volcanic hazards as this appealed to them as individuals and volcanoes and their associated hazards are quite an abstract concept for students in the UK.

The first task was the production of a storyboard. This required inter-personal and intrapersonal learning skills as well as a degree of creativity. This stage is also important for a
<figure><img src="image_236.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2** Screengrab from edu4hazard.org website regarding volcano safety</figcaption></figure>

teacher to help students negotiate potential pitfalls as well as guiding students to stay focussed on the task at hand. Each location (around the school grounds) was identified by students as well as alternatives if the weather was inclement on the day of filming. Storyboards were viewed by the class teacher and students were allowed to complete outside class if they wished, but a photograph of each group's storyboard was also taken so that if a child was absent with illness for instance, a copy could be printed off for use by the group. Students were then allowed to go and film what they needed, following and using their storyboards which provided structure and allowed for an easier editing process as a result.

Following editing, student films were impor-
ted to the class computer and shared with the
class. The group that had made the film answered
questions about their film, as part of the assess-
ment and evaluation phase of the lesson.

Students films were assessed (by the students,
and the teacher) on:

- the basis of content knowledge (e.g., what they remembered about volcanic hazards). This was carried out by comparing the information about the volcanic hazard as an image file on the board as a means of cross referencing that the information given was accurate and well presented.

- the 'correct response' to natural hazards events. This was assessed in terms of how seriously protective action was carried out and whether students had made assertions that were incorrect, misleading or dangerous. Again students and occasionally the teacher highlighted these points as part of the 'two stars and a wish' (see Table 1) process of evaluation. This requires students to make two positive comments about what they had seen and one suggestion to improve it. This allows for reflection and framing of their thoughts in a constructive manner.

- how they communicated the potential dan-
gers. For instance, the actions shown in the