Seismic risk communication: let’s students show their own way

Abstract

Risk communication has been playing an increasing role in modern society and in our lives. Normally framed to prompt reduction of vulnerability to hazards, it tackles issues ranging from prevention to preparedness and addresses a variety of stakeholders, each with a specific role within a community. However, the way to have the most effective risk communication in the long run is to engage young people: they seed the roots that shape future, increase the potential impact of risk mitigation and help build community resilience. This is the vision that drives the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) intervention in the field of seismic risk education. The “Are you taking too many risks?” was a school contest that INGV carried out for the schools involved in the risk communication campaign “Know your school: be safe!” of the project KnowRISK (Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements) funded by the European Commission DG-ECHO. Students, within a framework of cooperative learning, were asked to develop risk communication tools, being their peers the target public. It was an experiment of public engagement in risk communication that allowed young people to express their point of view and the way they would discuss and approach risks. Cartoons, animated drawings, interviews, and videos showed the way students see risk mitigation, in the age of parkour. The details of each students’ product are a lesson learned to shape risk communication campaigns in the future.

When the Past Teaches the Future: Earthquake and Tsunami Risk Reduction through Episodes of Situated Learning (ESL)

“…Our first ESL experiment produced comics on safe behavior in the case of natural events. Then, within the framework of the KnowRisk (Know your city, Reduce seISmic risKthrough non-structural elements) project, the ESL's final digital outputs were creative products dedicated to non-structural seismic risk reduction [24][25][26][27][28]. Another ESL, titled "A nuoto tra i vulcani Italiani" ("Swimming among the Italian volcanoes"), developed to raise awareness of the ESL method among teachers, was designed to explain Italian seamounts using interactive maps.…”

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

“…The analysis of the questionnaires at T0 and T1 allowed than to assess in a quantitative manner if changes in The Protocol from one year to the next were effective. The general structure of The Protocol and the learning strategy was first tested in the city of La Spezia for which the assessment was performed only qualitatively by means of student's products within the KR-EAS | NSE (Piangiamore et al, 2020). The choice of starting in La Spezia was based on operational reasons, belonging to a well-established collaboration network.…”

“…Sometimes the discussion/debate among the students allowed them to understand concepts that even for adults can be difficult. Finally, the products presented by the students provide insights on student's point of view towards risk and the way they think it could be communicated (Piangiamore et al, 2020). Brief video-reports, interviews, semi-serious games, hand shaken non-structural damage models, video scribing, comics, music.…”

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and earthquake: the teaching of emotions meets Geoscience

“…It's important not to lose memory of past disasters, and to avoid that citizens and local institutions make wrong choices enhancing social vulnerability and risk. Building natural hazard awareness to cope natural disasters has always been the ambitious goal of natural risk education projects conducted by the INGV in collaboration with local authorities, fire brigades, the Civil Protection Department and the State Forestry Corps (Piangiamore et al, 2012(Piangiamore et al, , 2013(Piangiamore et al, , 2021.…”