You can lead a horse to water but...

I am currently writing a paper for a disaster prevention in education conference in Taiwan and so have been researching about new curriculum in general, alongside curriculum materials. What is becoming clear is that although there is an ever growing proliferation of educational materials, made to address different facets of a range of hazards and responses, this will not lead to education that helps people make changes to their lifestyles to become better prepared. This is for several reasons.

Firstly even if you 'train' teachers or provide INSET, unless they are engaged and think it is important, they will do what they need to do to tick boxes and perhaps nothing more.

Secondly you need to have everyone on board and wanting the same outcomes, which means that these outcomes need to be WRITTEN DOWN and agreed upon by all the agencies involved in creating the curriculum.

Thirdly, these outcomes need to be broken down and specified for EACH part or lesson in the scheme of work, so 'what Im a looking for...' and 'we are learning to...' type statements that can be answered and built upon each time.

Fourthly, that having lesson plans and a 'scheme of work is not enough to engage teachers. They want a range of resources that they can pool from (more often using the internet) which offer a range of film clips, photo-slideshows, mystery exercises, diamond nine thinking skills, maps etc that can be used in the way that best suits the individual needs of both the teacher and the class. This means that writing frames and differentiated worksheets and activity sheets will need to be produced. Also by offering a range of resources in this way the individual learning styles of students can be attended to (kinaesthetic, visual, audio etc), while also allowing the teacher to remain a creative force in the classroom while allowing his/her students to develop a better understanding of the ideas and concepts that disaster prevention education wants to get across.

And finally (for now anyway) it is important that students and teachers feel a sense of achievement about what they have been through together. That BOTH students AND teachers not only understand and are aware of the dangers in their community but that they are both prepared mentally and physically. By this I mean having and emergency go-bag, learning first aid and knowing what there role is and more importantly, how to perform it in the event of an emergency either at school or in their community.

I have tried to provide a flavour of this on this site under the curriculum section. Although I used this in the school I work in does not mean that you would want to take the entirety of it for your school and indeed it would not be suitable for every age group or every part of the world. However I am doing what I can. The aim of this network is that we all do what we can but also SHARE this practice with others.

Take my quiz if you dare!

Below is my new multi-hazard quiz using youtube clips of hazards to test your knowledge..careful, some are times so no cheating!!

This clip of flooding should be shown as a "Do's & Don'ts" for floods in UK

I saw his on the BBC news site this morning...Can you spot where people have concreted EVERYWHERE and then try to drive through the floods only to get stranded....Education also needs to reach adults!



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7781388.stm

Have the Pitt Review people seen this by the way? This is a REALLY useful way of showing how flooding can be exacerbated by making the wrong decisions, from concreting your 'garden' to driving through flooded areas only to need 'rescuing'. This is also a great resource for educators and teachers. Show it to your students and then ask them to spot why some people were flooded more severely than others

FEMA Launches Children-In-Disasters Initiative With IAEM, Save The Children but misses the point

An initiative to beintroduced by FEMA and Save the children to reduce their vulnerabilities in the event of a disaster has been launched, but fails to really hit the mark in my opinion. An extract published below from the press statement sounds rather grand, but is disappointing as it does not recognise the capacities of children in any way:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) is teaming up with the International Association of
Emergency Managers (IAEM), Save the Children Foundation and the American Red
Cross to launch an initiative that will enable the emergency management
community to better address the needs of children in disasters.

"This initiative will involve concrete steps to focus attention on the needs
of children in disasters and help the emergency management community address
children's special needs in the emergency planning process," FEMA
Administrator Paulison said. "Although this initiative is a
work-in-progress, we're committed to a course of action that involves
assessing and adjusting disaster response services for children."

The course will be designed to help state and local emergency
managers incorporate the needs of children into the emergency planning
process and standard Emergency Operations Plans. It will be based on Save
the Children Foundation's emergency management guide, The Unique Needs of
Children in Emergencies, a Guide for the Inclusion of Children in Emergency
Operations Plan.

"Children are extremely vulnerable during an emergency and evacuation," said
Mark Shriver, vice president and managing director of Save the Children's
U.S. programs and chair of the National Commission on Children and
Disasters. "It is crucial that communities plan ahead for disasters, with a
special focus on assisting children."

My response to this on the CYD-NET list serve was:

Dear Colleagues,
Although this is an encouraging initiative, it is important that the capacities of children are not overlooked in this instance. It is important that education involves children, rather than them being passive observers, they understand and are aware of the potential dangers as well as being able to know what to do, where to go and how to get there. They need to understand that they play a role in being safe. We teach children how to cross the road safely, how to wear a seatbelt, not to talk to adult that they don't know etc, but we don't yet address how they can be safe in an emergency.

I have recently been an observer in the Southern California shake-out exercise in which more than three million school children took part in drop, cover and hold, and many were involved in school evacuations. Although there was dissemination and feedback with staff involved in these exercises there was hardly any dissemination or discussion with the students that had also taken part. Had they understood why? Was it just another drill? When I asked the students what educational activities they had done prior to the drill the answer was that they had not. In other words it was not tied to the curriculum in any way, but was seen as an 'abstract' exercise with limited learning outcomes. This needs to change for these experiential activities are to be effective they need to have proper time for reflection and evaluation so that it becomes truly part of the 'experiential learning cycle'.


I also asked the students if they had an emergency kit at home, in the car etc, and in a group of twenty, there was one response of, "I think my mom does..." It is clear that these students (of high school age by the way) did not think it was their responsibility. We must move on from 'top down' approaches and be truly inclusive which means involving children in their own preparedness and safety through creative curricular and experiential learning that builds on evaluation and reflection. We also need to move on from didactic education and make it fun and experiential with an emphasis on practical action that can be taken by all (including children) to be prepared.

Edu4hazards.org now available in Chinese

Following the success of translating the entire site into Spanish and in an effort to cover the major written languages of the world, www.edu4hazards.org is now also available in Chinese (simplified). While you may also notice that this site has had a redesign, so has http://edu4drr.ning.com which I have done in an effort to get members to do the same! I want member sto use the site more and I thought that if I 'pimped' the site, they might do the same thing!

Effective Education for DRR - It's NOT Rocket Science...

This short video shows what can be done by teachers to initiate effective education for DRR in schools and the communities around them. These are VERY young children and yet thay are learning how to respond, where the hazards are in their area, how to avoid them and where the safe places are to evacuate to. They make their OWN hazard maps and share these with their pers and with adults. They are NOT scared or scarred by this experience, but they do LEARN and DISCOVER. According to proponents of experiential learning this will also perform part of a cycle where the children will reflect on what they have learned and apply it to a similar learning experience in the future. So what is MOST important is that great initiatives, lessons and learning are built upon and revisited in just a creative a way. Examples like this are inpiring to me as both a teacher and researcher of effective education for DRR and I wanted to share it with you. BY the way the original video of this was longer but I have edited out some of this in order to keep the important and simple message this film has to offer. The original film was made by the Insurers of Japan.

www.edu4hazards.org in Spanish

My edu4hazards site is now completely translated into Spanish. It took me about ten hours to change all the graphics in photoshop and edit and upload all of the html files. I have even changed the META tags so that someone searching on google in a Spanish speaking country will be able to find it! Pretty tiring but I am PLEASED with the results. Next I plan to translate into simplified Chinese using google translate! And talking of translating websites, I now have a clever little series of flags on the edu4drr.ning.com site which when pressed translates the entire site using google translate! I have to say having used google translate it is pretty good. However you really have to read through careully as any 'untranslatable' words stay in English. The trick the is to rephrase it slightly and then cross-check by translating back from Spanish to English (in this instance)

Script for Earthquake Preparedness Radio Adverts

So there was a message on the EN-DRR list serve today from the Kazakhstan wanting input on a script for earthquake safety. The advert was obviously aimed at engaging families in taking protective measures to reduce their vulnerability to disasters. When the script first came to me it was a little leaden and didn't necessarily reinforce the important messages for earthquake preparedness. Below is my reply with the edited version of the scripts. I have completed script one and two of four now:

Dear Tashkent DRR Team,
I have looked through your scripts and think that reaching people via radio commercials is a very good idea. It is VERY important to make sure that the advice is consistent with lessons learned elsewhere. It is doubly important that any radio commercial makes it very CLEAR what to do as there is no visual reference. I will attempt to change all four scripts to meet this criteria, but have changed the first one to what you see below! Explaining what an earthquake is quiet abstract and I am unsure of the level of education about this with the general public in Kazakhstan. However, I have tried to address this in the script below. I hope this helps and I am sure that there are others on the mailing list that will be willing to help you.

Kind Regards,

Justin Sharpe

Clip 1


There are three characters in this jingle: mother, father and 10-12 years old child.


Kid: Daddy, what is an earthquake?


Father: Earthquake’s are the shaking, rolling or sudden shock of the earth’s surface. Earthquakes happen along "fault lines" in the earth’s crust.

Mommy: Most of the time, you will notice an earthquake by the gentle shaking of the ground. You may notice hanging plants swaying or objects wobbling on shelves. Sometimes you may hear a low rumbling noise or feel a sharp jolt.

Kid: And how to act during an earthquake?


Father: The most important is not to panic!


Mother: The second most important thing to remember during an earthquake is to DROP, COVER and HOLD ON. So remember to DROP to the floor on your knees and get under something such as a table for COVER and HOLD ON during the shaking.

Father: If there is no table or bed to get under drop down onto your knees against a wall away from things that might fall on you. Stay away from windows bookcases or heavy furniture. Try to cover your head and neck.


Mother: And of course, you have to stay at your place until the earthquake stops.

Father: And when it is over, move carefully and look out for fallen things.

The Second Script & e-mail:

Dear Tashkent Team,
I have written out clip two below. It is important to REINFORCE a consistent message about certain key points, so you will see information about drop cover and hold on, again in this clip. I have expanded (slightly) the rest of the clip too, but all of this will be below 30 seconds still! I hope this helps,

Kind Regards,

Justin

Clip 2:


Kid: Mommy, why are there sometimes victims when earthquakes happen?


Mother: Well, first of all, because people began to panic, which is strongly not recommended.


Father: And second of all, in order not to be a victim of an earthquake it is important to be prepared for it.


Kid: But how can we be prepared?

Mother: Do you remember what we have been practicing at home?

Kid: You mean when we DROP, COVER and HOLD ON. I get under a table, drop to my knees and hold on to the table leg!

Father: Well REMEMBERED!

Mother: But we should be prepared in other ways too.

Kid: How so?

Mother: The most dangerous places in the house should be identified, for example near the windows, big and heavy things which can fall down. You need to stay away from these if an earthquake occurs!


Father: We should also know how to switch off the gas and electricity in order to avoid a fire starting.

Mother: There must be a first aid kit in the house which is easy to access and won’t get lost in an earthquake.


Father: Moreover, it is important to have copies of necessary documents.


Mother: Each member of the family should know exactly appointed place for meeting after the earthquake, as well as how to get there safely!