After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the Ministry of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan created supplemental texts about radiation. Teachers were then instructed to provide education on radiation, but many were unable to do so because they had not learned a sufficient amount of material. Therefore, we developed a "Quartet Game" that could be used by teachers in school as teaching material to make learning easier for students. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether elementary school students could acquire knowledge on radiation through the Quartet Game and clarified whether it was an appropriate methodology for sharing information. This study was carried out in 2015 in Fukushima Prefecture and included 89 students as study participants. We conducted a questionnaire test on the students before and after the implementation of the game. The results indicated that over 95% of the students understood the rules, enjoyed playing the game, and learned something new. Furthermore, the total knowledge score on the post-test was significantly higher than that on the pre-test. These findings suggest that the Quartet Game is an effective method for teaching radiation education among elementary school students.Key words:radiation, nuclear disaster, risk communication, elementary school, Fukushima
I. INTRODUCTIONAbout 10 years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake struck the Tohoku and Kanto regions of Japan, leading to a devastating tsunami and resultant accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), which is operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company 1) . According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the amount of radionuclides released was one-sixth that seen after the Cher nobyl disaster in 1986 2) . However, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was still ranked as a "Level 7 (major) accident", the highest value on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the same as the Chernobyl disaster 3) . Due to the large amount of radionuclides released, the Japanese central government declared the area around the FDNPS as a "Difficult-to-return zone", forcing a large number of residents to evacuate. In total, over 15,000 residents of Fukushima Prefecture had to evacuate to other regions within or outside the prefecture 4,5) . After several years, due to extensive decontamination efforts, the government gradually 2021;87 (6) :274-285 Jpn J Health & Human Ecology 〔Research Note〕