Natural hazards revealed to children: the other side of prevention

Abstract

Risk misperception often ineffectively drives us to choose recovery over prevention; the latter being usually conceived with actions aimed at mitigation of infrastructure vulnerability. Although it is fundamental to implant the culture of prevention and therefore have an impact on risk mitigation and community disaster resilience, long-term programmes encompassing knowledge, innovation and education are often underestimated. If education involves children, we more efficiently spread the culture of risk reduction through a chain reaction dissemination mechanism and prompt behaviours that are better imprinted on the mind, reinforce awareness of hazard response, and foster citizens who tomorrow might be part of the process of making crucial decisions on prevention strategies. For the past 10 years, our learn-by-playing, hands-on, emotionaldriven, curiosity-driven approach activities have involved more than 20 000 students and teachers living in areas prone to natural hazards. In addition to requests and appreciation from the public, questionnaires handed out to teachers and students have proved that our approach to prevention best practice is successful. Questionnaires filled in by children and their families encouraged us to promote the strong potential for dissemination in the local environment. We are engaged in on-going research on risk reduction oriented science outreach activities to implement models focused on geoscience education and to give citizens tools to affect the process of risk reduction decision-making.

Domains and indicators of resilient children in natural disasters: A systematic literature review

“…Moreover, the Indonesian study investigated factors contributing to resilience among survivor children in the age group of 11–15 years,[ 45 ] referred to spiritual health topics considering the importance of the issue of personal-social factors. Studies conducted by Piangiamore,[ 46 ] Martin,[ 3 ] and Mudavanhu et al . [ 1 ] are more specialized in DRR and have addressed the status and importance of the component of perceived disaster risk, which could be one of the most important factors in children's resilience, and are included in the international documents, including the new version of the Sendai framework (2015–2030) which emphasized the necessity of disaster risk perception in all society groups.…”

A protocol to communicate seismic risk in schools: design, test and assessment in Italy

“…School represents a great opportunity to provide proper knowledge, attitude, and practice towards earthquake damage prevention to the future society. In Italy, such opportunity is emphasized by the fact that school system, acknowledge the fruitful interaction with the world of science by hosting special projects that can complement in a few hours what teachers and textbooks do not offer to students (Musacchio et al, 2014a;Piangiamore at al., 2015). These projects normally have a length that should not be too intrusive of the school planning.…”

“Scientist as a game”: learning geoscience via competitive activities

“…Thus, outreach programs should include the chance for school students to visit scientific laboratories, where feasible, and to interact with scientists at different events, such as at science fairs, public exhibitions, or special venues. Moreover, visits of scien-tists to schools [Solarino 2009a, Solarino 2009b, Piangiamore et al 2015] can also lead to preliminary interactions. Finally, ad-hoc education programs based on the adoption and use of scientific instruments under the guidance of scientists have the advantage that they convert students from spectators to main actors [Zollo et al 2014, Piangiamore et al 2015].…”

“…Moreover, visits of scien-tists to schools [Solarino 2009a, Solarino 2009b, Piangiamore et al 2015] can also lead to preliminary interactions. Finally, ad-hoc education programs based on the adoption and use of scientific instruments under the guidance of scientists have the advantage that they convert students from spectators to main actors [Zollo et al 2014, Piangiamore et al 2015]. These interactions might fill the gap between the worlds of science and of education, a gap that grows deeper as the misconceptions of teachers of the geosciences are passed on to their pupils [Oldershaw 2004, Bernhardsdóttir et al 2012, Musacchio et al 2015a; indeed, the core science textbooks on the market are riddled with errors [King 2010, Bernhardsdóttir et al 2012.…”