A Class Design and Evaluation for ICT-Based Disaster Learning Involving Fieldwork: Put into Practice in High School

Abstract

Given the varying nature and frequency of disasters across regions, it is crucial to understand local disaster characteristics and preparedness through disaster education. This study designed and evaluated the effectiveness of high school disaster education through fieldwork. The learning objective was to learn local disaster characteristics and preparations for natural disasters by creating disaster prevention maps. The fieldwork used a support system for creating a disaster prevention map called “Sonael.” Subjective surveys showed that students’ disaster awareness had improved. Tests confirmed their acquiring of knowledge of local disaster characteristics. In addition, the interviews revealed that the students had become more aware of the local situation from a disaster prevention perspective. Although the fieldwork was the main influence on the learning effect, knowledge acquisition outside of the fieldwork area covered by the fieldwork was also observed, suggesting that ICT-based sharing also had an effect. The learning activities designed in this study were able to realize the learning of acquiring knowledge from a wide area perspective about local disaster characteristics and preparations through fieldwork and its sharing.