Institutional Support required for disaster preparedness education in an primary school -A trial at the affiliated elementary school of MUEMikami,

K. (Miyagi Univ. of Education), Araake, K., Ito, K., Endo, T. Okuyama, T., Ozawa, A., Fukasawa, Nagano, T. and Naruse, S. (The Affiliated Elementary School of Miyagi Univ. of Education)

Importance of disaster preparedness education Japan is called disaster archipelago, because disasters of earthquake, storm and flood damages occur every year. We, Sendai-citizens are faced with a big earthquake. In Sendai area, scientists predict a big earthquake with the probability of 99% within this coming 30 years. Not to be panic at an earthquake, educational programs could be effective for disaster preparedness. Even for the pupil of primary school, the awareness of disaster preparedness is also necessary. However, the teaching contents and methods should be interesting, sometimes in a sense of wonder, but not dreadful. The most important point is that the school children do not become too nervous for the disaster. If the education program is very stimulating without consideration, it may make the matter worse. We are going to do the education program of disaster preparedness education as a comprehensive study (an integrated study) in our school, this year. In this context as mentioned above, the disaster preparedness education is offered as a part of the complex of culture, environment and welfare in the local area of Sendai. We have to be very careful to deal with the disaster and have to make effort to give dream to the children through our program. For example, science and our preparedness surely reduce damages brought by the disaster. In our curriculum, students recognize their living space or environment at the lower grades (1 and 2nd grades), nurture the attitude to prepare for the disaster in correlation with culture, environment and welfare at the middle grades (3rd and 4th grades). At the higher grades (5th and 6th grades), they learn about the mechanism of the natural disaster, social system of disaster preparedness and the power of science to decrease the damages suffered from the disaster. Necessity of disaster preparedness education In the Tohoku area of Japan, we were often suffered from disasters such as earthquake, tsunami, typhoon, flood and freaks of nature. In Tohoku district of Japan, about 150 tsunamies recorded, we heared. In a record of 869, a big
st

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earthquake occurred and about 1,000 persons died of the tsunami. The tsunami that caused by the earthquake occurred in 1960 at the Republic

Past Earthquakes in the Sendai-district

Focuses of earthquakes in Miyagi Pref. Offing
Iwate Pref. Miyagi Pref. Miyako 1978
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Hachinohe

Sendai
1937

of Chile and come across the pacific ocean attacked Sanriku-coast of Japan and caused big damages.

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1933 1936

Sendai city Fukushima Pref. Iwaki

The experiences in nature must be very important to forecast, avoid or overcome these difficulties. However, there are many students who have never seen not only sunrise

Kahoku Shinpo 2006.6.10.

Promotional area of provision for earthquake disaster prevention

Fig. 1 Past earthquakes in Tohoku area, Japan

the newspaper KAHOKU SHINPO 2006.6.10.)

(From

but also sunset, or who put the light on overnight and cannot sleep in the dark. Miyagi Board of Education promotes students Going to bed early, Getting up early and Taking breakfast. The children living by the coast area do not always know much about the sea, though they have much time to do computer games. These are the situation of children now in Japan. Therefore, we should offer opportunities to do activities in nature. As mentioned above, a big earthquake is predicted in Sendai area in near future. Most of students are dwelling in the urban area of Sendai city and some of them are living in a skyscraper. Sendai city faces to Pacific Ocean and have a long coast. And therefore, many people living by the coast area. Tyfoons often
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At the coast of Sendai

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pass through, though they are usually weakening at Sendai area. Any way, awareness of disaster is important for us. At the disaster, people have to act calmly as possible as we can. If a big earthquake happens, most of our facilities must stop, because of troubles with the supply of electricity, gas and water. We have to

Experience in nature
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At the mountain area

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Fig. 2

Activities in the nature fields

be alive by ourselves at most 3 days, because people say that it takes 3 days for the rescue to

come to all of the sufferer. Once the natural disaster happens, we need some skills, such as how to obtain water, how to act in the regional disturbance, how to help the sufferer in the disaster area, and so on. In our school, we want to develop 3 abilities in the class of comprehensive study; (1) an ability of finding their own research questions and finding out how to research them, (2) an ability of making relations with others and societies, and (3) an ability of presentation. We are going to do the following curriculum in 2006 academic year. A curriculum of disaster preparedness education in the Affiliated Elementary School of

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MUE We have to give students a kind of confidence to overcome the difficulty after a natural disaster. To do so, the learning on the disaster preparedness was inlayed into other subjects such as culture, welfare and environment. Provision for an earthquake can be seen in our primary school campus. For example, our school is under the repair construction of school building for earthquake-proof for these two years. Our school has stockpile of food (hardtack, rice and water) as well as other schools. In some schoolds, each student has a disaster prevention hood which is usually used as a cushion on the chair. Moreover, schools will be refuge in the region after a disaster. If a big earthquake happens during school time, students wear the hoods on their heads to protect their heads against falling things down. Most of their parents come to school to take them back home, if possible. Some other children have to stay at school, if their parents cannot come. In our school, we have a mobile Fig. 3 The outline of our curriculum phone network for emergency. This is very efficient in an emergency. However, it may not work after a disaster. Not to give too much stress to the children, daily education program and experiences in nature are important. We have to be very careful not to give
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Comprehensive study
at the Affiliated Elementary School of MUE (2006)
Grade Subject 1 2 3 4 Comprehensive 5 study Life Life IZUMI 70 Time IZUMI 70 Time IZUMI 70 Time (River) IZUMI 70 6 Time Welfare Disaster prevention (Festival and Expression) Culture Environmen t Welfare + Disaster prevention + Culture + Environment (35 hours) Welfare + Disaster prevention + Culture + Environment (35 hours) Welfare Disaster prevention Culture Environmen t Hours Contents

Learning about Sendai city, I (35 hours)

Learning about Sendai city, II (35 hours)

Disaster prevention education in ESD

Not serious, Not nervous, with hope, with pleasant experience
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the fear of the natural disaster to students. Students at the lower grades have the class Life. In the class, they learn about their circumstances of school, the route from their house to the school and regional social life.

Welfare
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Culture
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Development of

Sendai-ology

Disaster prevention

Environment

At the middle grades, children learn about Sendai city where they live. Contents of the learning are composed of all of the 4 subjects, that is, welfare, disaster preparedness,

Correlated with Welfare, Culture and Environment

Fig. 4

Contents of the comprehensive study

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culture and environment. In disaster preparedness education, it seems to be important for school children to learn about their regional socie ty and nature that they belong to, though this is also important for understanding the foreign countries and global thinking. The 4 subjects must be connected somehow. For example, they can learn about refuge and nursing of aged person, the wisdom of other days, the wisdom of aged persons and so on. These 4 are connected with each other by the word of hometown Sendai. We call this SENDAI-GAKU (Sendai-ology). They can learn about the origin of Sendai, natural environment in the local region, refuge or evacuation of aged person from the disaster, history of the disaster, and the wisdom of the aged person for the disaster. At the higher grades, children choose favorite one among the 4 subjects. In the class of comprehensive study, especially at the higher grades, matters of the subject are usually chosen by the students. Teachers have to guide them about their interests and questions. During the higher grades, that is, 5th grade and 6th grades, children develop 3 abilities in the comprehensive study as mentioned previously. To solve interests or questions that students raised, teachers have to acquire the great extent of their knowledge.
Institutional network for supporting school education for disaster preparedness
Disaster preparedness education is related to a great extent of the knowledge. Teachers at school

must study teaching materials but it is not easy to find what they want. They need supports from the institutions outside school. Institutions of higher education seem to have important roles in the education at school. The affiliated schools of a university have advantages in doing disaster preparedness education, because many professors/specialist can support schools. The knowledge area to which natural disaster relates is very extensive to foster the awareness of disaster preparedness. Following institutions can give us valuable information These for are disaster a fire preparedness.

EE Consortium
Environmental Education TOHOKU Consortium eec-tohoku@adm .miyakyo-u .ac.jp Network Partnership
Teacher Training Center Science Museum Companies (gas, power, water) Local Government Community Center

station/department, kinds of companies such as gas, power, water, telephone. Local government also gives us important information. To understand the origin or cause of disasters, science museum is useful. Sendai City Science Museum has some interesting teaching materials to know the mechanism of natural disaster. For example, people can experience an earthquake on the special car. Learning

School

Board of Education

Universities Disaster Prevention Center

NPOs

Fig. 5 Network for supporting disaster preparedness education at schools, designed based on EE Consortium

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about liquefaction produced by earthquake also presented in the museum. An apparatus is exhibited to show the tornado. Disaster Control In Research Center in Tohoku University, and the faculty of science education in Miyagi University of Education can support school education. Earth Simulation Center/JAMSTEC in Yokohama that is proud of the world must be also attractive for students. However, the stuffs of the institutions and companies are usually very busy. And therefore, a supporting system or a network must be necessary to do disaster preparedness education. Universities dedicated to educating school teachers can cope with such needs. The Environmental Education Center (EEC) of Miyagi University of Education (MUE) collaboration with local schools may constitute an important part of its research activities, for it allows MUE to collect data on the school sites, implement a pilot curriculum, and evaluate it. Outcomes of the research conducted by MUE in collaboration with local schools will contribute to the contents of the environmental education database and teaching materials MUE is developing. Indeed, research and outreach/service are mutually complimentary for MUE. To further enhance educational outreach and public service, MUE is also developing a regional EE network. MUE launched the email list EE Tohoku Consortium (eec-tohoku@adm.miyakyo-u.ac.jp), a community consortium which aims at developing a system to support school EE at the regional level. This consortium was initially organized by members of the Japanese Society of Environmental Education in the Tohoku Region in order to respond to the local schools requests for assistance to carrying out EE programs. So far 150 people have been added to this list, though the members of companies such as gas, power and water are few. Moreover, MUE established a teaching material library ELFE (Environmental Library For Education). Through the library ELFE, many kinds of teaching materials can be distributed or lent to the schools. There is an urgent need to develop effective teaching materials and practical programs that integrate closely related subjects. The project of ELFE involves creating the total support system ELFE that can supply practical programs, teaching materials and support to schools nationwide for kindergarten, primary and junior high school students, on demand. To put it concretely, this project advances the development of EE curriculum of closely related subjects in school education and the development and assessment of the method for evaluating teaching materials for EE. Facilities such as ELFE can also support schools in the disaster preparedness education. If these institutions collaborate well each other, we can support schools effectively.
For the fruitful collaboration

There are some attentions that should be paid to do collaboration well with other organization or persons out of the school. The first point is the relationship of give and take between a supporter and a school, in other words, the relationship of Win and win . The institutions offer

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Attention paid for the collaboration between schools and institutions

Relationship of

specialized information or supports. Instead, they can learn about the children and obtain satisfaction of the contribution to the children, and also obtain citizens general understanding for the institution. The second point is that the school should not monopolize the outcomes but distribute them to the region. The third point is that the teachers themselves should learn actively from their supporters, because students learn from the attitude of the school-teachers. The fourth point is that the

Give and Take

or Win & Win Learn about children Learn affection from children

Offering Academic knowledge Experience Information

Sharing the outcomes

Reduction to the local society

Teachers have to carry the ball and learn about vividly. Teachers do not entrust all things to the institutions. 4. Supporters of institutions have to know that the school is administrated by the year curriculum and that the final responsibility to the children belongs to school .
Miyagi University Of Education

Fig. 6

Win-win collaboration

activities of each class is dependent on the school calendar based on the curriculum that has been decided at the beginning of the school year. The supporters should take it to heart and should not force the supporters suggestions to do it immediately, because the responsibility for the children is belonging to school. If the supporters pay attention at these points to the school, we can say that schools and supporters/institutes build the win-win relationship. We recently started the studies on the curriculum of disaster preparedness education in the primary school and the development of teaching materials. To implement the curriculum of disaster preparedness, important key words may be regional activities, system thinking, positive thinking, experiences in nature and information network.

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