Chapter 29
Disaster Mitigation Education for the Next Generation
Field of expertise: Communication Psychology, Disaster Mitigation Education

Mari Yasuda
Translated by Catherine Sachi Kikuchi

Summary
As long as we live, it’s inevitable that we will encounter disasters. Although the mechanisms ofdisaster occurrence are becoming more or less understood, we still do not know when, where, or
what kind of disasters will occur. For this reason, we have to live in harmony with disasters while
trying to minimize the damage they cause.
Keywords: natural disaster science, integration of humanities and sciences, disaster reduction
awareness, active learning, tool development

Introduction
The loss of children who were able to act on their own in the massive earthquake andtsunami that occurred on March 11, 2011, changed disaster prevention education in a major way: It
shifted from adults needing to protect the lives of children, to fostering children’s power to live - theability to protect one’s own life.

1: Problems Exposed by the Great East Japan Earthquake
What happened?
On the afternoon of Friday, March 11, 2011, all schools had already dismissed or werepreparing to dismiss their students for the next day's graduation ceremony. At 2:46 pm, anearthquake hit. It was a strong and long tremor, unlike anything experienced before. The schools
immediately gathered their students in the schoolyard, and those that were in danger of being hit
by a tsunami immediately evacuated their students to higher ground near the school or to the top
floor of the school.
However, schools and residents that did not have tsunami evacuation plans were able toevacuate according to their usual evacuation drills. The damage caused by the earthquake wasimmediately visible, but the tsunami took some time to reach land. In schools where there was noview of the ocean, tsunamis could not be anticipated and evacuation to higher ground wasdelayed, resulting in deaths of those who were under school protection. In particular, the damage
to Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, which was caught in the1tsunami 50 minutes after the earthquake, triggered a major change in disaster prevention
education (Tsunami Research Subcommittee, 2009).

2: Paradigms Destroyed by the Earthquake
Conventional wisdom and necessary measures
Tsunamis are a type of disaster where you can survive if you evacuate to an elevation highenough that the waves cannot reach (Yasuda, et al., 2018). In the case of the Great East Japan
Earthquake, there was a sign - the major earthquake. There are cases in regions where the ocean
is visible, in which children returned to their school, located on higher ground, after being urged to
do so by local residents. It’s a disaster in which human loss could have been avoided if people had
evacuated to higher ground. Although evacuation drills and disaster prevention education havebeen conducted for various disasters in the past, the mainstream approach has been to havechildren follow the guidance of teachers and protect themselves as a group. In particular, tsunami
countermeasures were considered to be important in areas with rias topography, as these areas
had historically suffered many major disasters. In the area south of Oshika Peninsula, Miyagi
Prefecture, which had not experienced severe damage in recent tsunamis, there was littleawareness that tsunamis could cause immense damage. The fact that there was no major tsunami
damage after the Great Chilean Earthquake of 1960 may have contributed to the lack of tsunami
awareness among residents. In particular, even at low elevations, people in areas a little inlandfrom the coast cannot see the ocean directly from their buildings. They likely could not haveimagined that a tsunami would come from the ocean that they could not even see.
Even at schools, drills focused on evacuation from typical earthquakes and fires. Teachers
who provide disaster prevention education to children also commute from outside the school
district or have been transferred there, making it difficult for them to imagine a local disaster.
Residents, too, stop sharing their disaster experiences after 50 years, much less have the ability toimagine a tsunami bigger than anything they experienced in the past. At that time, there were few
opportunities for university professors who study tsunamis to explain the mechanism of tsunamis
directly to children. Tsunamis are said to be one of the low frequency disasters. Although it can bemitigated by evacuation, it is characterized by the fact that they occur when people have forgotten
about them, causing a repetition of similar damage.

3: A New Approach
The lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake have given rise to the conceptof disaster prevention education, which aims to make the entire community safer by encouraging
adults and children to protect their own lives against natural disasters that can occur anywhere atany time. We thought that it was necessary for university researchers to visit elementary schools
around the time young children first learn about disasters to explain the mechanisms of natural
disasters and encourage children to think about how to mitigate disaster damage. With thecooperation of the boards of education in each prefecture, we launched the Tohoku University
Disaster Mitigation Education Yui Project in 2015 to communicate to children the results of ourresearch in an easy-to-understand manner. We visited schools and provided lessons to fifth-grade
elementary school students and older, whose understanding of language and interest in scienceare developing.

2The team, which used to be centered on science and engineering but then combined
cognitive psychology and history with natural disaster science, devised ways to make visualteaching materials so that they would be easier to understand. They teach while observing thereactions of the students and teachers in the classroom, and have adopted active learning
methods to make it easier for the students to think about what could happen to them in suchsituations, and give importance to the time spent in group work. Considering game-like group workis effective, they developed disaster prevention/mitigation stamp rallies with businesses. They
made a disaster mitigation handkerchief and distributed them to children as a tool for reviewing
lessons and communicating with family members about disaster preparedness, thereby helping tomaintain awareness. By going beyond the university's original role and connecting directly withsociety, a new form of education was created. We conduct questionnaire surveys on changes inchildren's awareness of disaster mitigation. One question asks how they prepare for disasters with
their families and what actions they would take in case of an emergency. We asked them what
they discussed with their families and what specific actions they took after these discussions. The
results are shown in Figure 29-1 and Figure 29-2 below (Lopes, 1992).

Figure 29-1. Items that children discussed with their families at home after the disaster
preparedness class

Figure 29-2. Percentage of children who took preparedness measures with their families

4: Achievements and the Future
The purpose of disaster mitigation education is to protect people's lives in times ofemergency and to enable them to lead lives as close to normal as possible. In order to achieve

3this, we should learn the basics of natural disaster science, find out what we can do throughlearning about them, and take immediate action. When discussing with students and teachers what
can be done I advise them to start with what they think they might be able to do. It’s one step at atime. It’s enough to take one step at a time. Even if it’s not perfect in the beginning, it is important
to develop the plan little by little. It’s not enough to think about it, and try just once. We need toadjust and reshape our plans as we learn and grow. That is the important part. In order to achievethis, disaster prevention education itself needs to be fun and interesting. If only the painful and sadpart of the damage is shared, it may leave a strong impression, but it will not lead to disastermitigation actions. In order to prevent this from happening, we need to think about what we can do
now and try to devise ways in our daily lives to make the concept of disaster mitigation our own
responsibility. In our classes, students learn about the mechanisms of disasters and work in groups
to develop their own ideas of disasters. Figure 29-3 and 29-4 show this in action. By exchanging
our ideas of disaster mitigation with others, we broaden our own judgment and actions, and thisincreases the number of children who consider learning to be an enjoyable activity. In the future, itwill be important for children to develop their own way to take what they have learned in disastermitigation classes and turn it into action.

Figure 29-3. Children reviewing what they learned with the disaster mitigation handkerchief

Figure 29-4. Children exchanging opinions in group work

Conclusion - From the author
No two natural disasters are the same. Damage differs depending on the place, time ofday, and season in which it occurs. The situation changes with the passage of time as well. That is
why there is no single right answer about the best course of action. I would like you, the people4who will create our future, to continue to think about how you should act in the event of a disasterand keep preparing for it in order to stay safe.

References
Lopes R., (1992). Public Perception of Disaster Preparedness Presentations Using Disaster
Damage Images, working paper #79. Natural Hazard Research, American Red Cross National
Headquarters Disaster Services. https://hazards.colorado.edu/uploads/workingpaper/wp79.pdf
Tsunami Research Subcommittee. (Ed.). (2009). Surviving a Tsunami: What You Need to Know
Before. Japan Society of Civil Engineers. ISBN 978-4-8106-0679-9. (In Japanese).
Yasuda, M., Muramoto, T., & Nouchi, R. (2018). Assessment of Educational Methods for Improving
Children’s Awareness of Tsunamis and Other Natural Disasters: Focusing on Changes in
Awareness and Regional Characteristics in Japan. Geosciences, 8(2), 47.
doi:10.3390/geosciences8020047

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