Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the roles school health care teachers play in preventing natural disasters. A survey was conducted regarding the attitudes the school health care teachers had about their roles, the rates of the implementation of these roles, and other related factors.
Method: A questionnaire was used to survey school health care teachers in two prefectures in Kansai and Hokuriku Areas in 2013. There were 412 respondents from elementary and junior high schools that were analyzed in the study. The survey items were as follows: attitudes regarding the importance of 17 roles school health care teachers perform, the rates of implementation of those roles, and the roles of school nurse teachers in training school teachers on the prevention of natural disasters. Moreover, the location of the schools, the likely disasters to be watched out for at schools, the schools’ plans for the prevention of disasters, and the clarification of the roles of school health care teachers in the plan were also surveyed as part of the related factors regarding attitudes and the rates of implementation.
Results: School health care teachers generally evaluated their roles as important. The combined rates of “very important” and “moderately important” ranged from 92.9 to 100.0% over the roles, while those of “very important” ranged from 23.1 to 92.9%. The roles that received higher rates of importance were “keeping track of medical contact numbers” and “establishing a first-aid system,” while those receiving lower rates were “joining a unit of natural disaster prevention” and “participating in devising a safety plan.” The implementation rates ranged from 7.9 to 91.5%. The roles with the higher implementation rates were “managing drugs” and “establishing a first-aid system,” while those with lower rates were “environment management” and “health counseling.” The clarification of the roles of school nurse teachers in the plan related significantly to three roles regarding attitudes about their importance and four roles regarding their implementation rate, while only a few factors such as the location of the school, the likely disasters, and the school’s prevention plan were significantly related to them. Clarifying the roles of school health care teachers in the plan was suggested as being effective in preventing likely natural disasters at schools.

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Purpose: This research aims to show actual state of teaching disaster prevention for challenged children.
Methods: From December 2012 to February 2013, the surveys concerning disaster prevention were conducted. Seventy parents having challenged children participated in this study. In addition, methods of teaching disaster prevention for challenged children were also examined from additional hearing research.
Results: The main findings were as follows,
1) More than half of parents did not sufficiently educate concerning disaster prevention to their children.
2) In terms of teaching for challenged children, their understandings seem to be helped by illustrating of cause and effect, logical explanation about the reason, and chronological explanation.
Conclusion: Education concerning disaster prevention for challenged children is insufficient in the quality and quantity. The education should be improved by results obtained from this study.

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In Japan, there are many excellent materials to reflect for disaster prevention education. For example, "INAMURA-NO-HI" and "TSUNAMI-TENDENKO" are introduced as one of the models in the world. However, after the Great East Japan Earthquake that became a catastrophe of unprecedented; disaster prevention education should be expected toward a higher level.
This study is proposed to develop new teaching materials for disaster prevention education in which focus on two characteristics of natural disaster and blessing. The subject is the Izumo myth, SUSANOO and YAMATANOOROCHI, which is recorded on the KOJIKI and the NIHON-SHOKI in the 8th century.
The overview is as follows.
(1) The essence of YAMATA-NO-OROCHI can be interpreted as a symbol expressing the flood of the river with an avalanche of earth and rocks.
(2) The myth which eradicates YAMATA-NO-OROCHI by SUSANOO can be interpreted as a realization of the sustainable living by river improvement and irrigation in IZUMO.
The Izumo myth, SUSANO and YAMATANOOROCHI, is not only the story as traditional language education in Japan. It should be argued as useful teaching materials of disaster prevention education.

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With the rash of crimes involving young children, including the kidnapping incident in Nara prefecture in 2004, measures to ensure the safety of children have become a pressing issue. According to police statistics, there were 23,935 penal code violations in 2006 where the victims were elementary school children, and although the number has decreased when simply compared to the 18,955 incidents in 2013, they continue to be high.
Given this situation, in addition to crime prevention efforts conducted by local citizens, crime prevention instruction has also started at schools with the goal of cultivating in children the ability to protect themselves. However, the amount of data on the effects of instruction to children at crime prevention classes and evaluations of crime prevention capabilities is limited. In this study, therefore, we targeted 162 first-grade pupils (79 boys and 83 girls) who had and had not taken part in crime prevention classes while in kindergarten, in order to compare and examine, through observation, if they still remembered what they had learned approximately a year earlier, and if they had reflected this knowledge in their actions and behaviors.
The results showed that, of the crime prevention behaviors, differences were seen in the ratio of children who had “raised their voices” and “pressed the crime prevention buzzer” between those who had taken crime prevention classes and those who had not (p < 0.01).

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This article summarizes the Reconstruction Mapping Program started in 2012, just one year after the Great East Japan Earthquake. It also draws the achievements and issues based on the two-year Program by the fourth-grade students at Kazuma Elementary School in Ishinomaki city, which was severely damaged by the Earthquake in 2011.
The Reconstruction Mapping Program has been developed through intensive consultation between fourth-grade teachers at Kazuma Elementary School and authors of this article, and through series of feedbacks from the actual implementation. In 2013, the Program became the main theme of the periods of integrated studies for the fourth grade at Kazuma Elementary School, where the fifty-three fourth-grade students spent 50 class-hours to implement the Program. The program covered the whole school district, where children, divided into 12 groups with one area assigned to each group, conducted two town-watchings per each area. Each group produced a Reconstruction Map of the assigned area by processing and incorporating the information gathered by the townwatchings, and presented the maps to the third and fifth grades as well as community people.
Analyses from a pre-program questionnaire and reviews after each town-watching exercise in 2013 indicated responses and changes of children’s perception through the Program. Children started to understand the current situation of their school district damaged by tsunami and started to show change in their perception toward the community. For example, after town-watching, children explained their community as “people cooperate with each other”, whereas before the town-watching, children tended to orient their town only by specific locations or buildings.
By comparing the Reconstruction Maps of 2012 and 2013, the Program also showed progress of reconstruction in Kazuma district taking place: “places or things causing children to feel danger or anxiety” decreased, while “others, including places or things that children notice (fun, beautiful, source of pride, etc.)” increased. The Reconstruction Maps accumulated records of progress at the Kazuma restrict. Moreover, continuing implementation of the Program from 2012 to 2013 helped to carryover the learning experience from forth to fifth grade, and handing over the efforts recording the reconstruction progress of the district to the next grade class.
At the same time, the following issues have been identified. Firstly, the Program did not provide enough opportunities for children to feel self-actualization through contributing to their community’s reconstruction and improvement. Secondly, specific measures should be examined to utilize the Reconstruction Maps as teaching materials for disaster education at their school. Thirdly, evaluation of the Program at Kazuma Elementary School should be conducted as a study program addressing “reconstruction” from the great earthquake. Furthermore, continuing analyses and efforts are required for scaling up the Reconstruction Mapping Program for dispersing to other areas in Japan and worldwide.

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This study aimed to indicate a direction for disaster recovery education through a case study analysis of the Reconstruction Mapping at Kazuma Elementary School in Ishinomaki-City. In the study, the features of the Reconstruction Mapping were shown: i) it was designed by reflecting the local context of the school district; ii) town-watching and map-making were the main components; and iii) based on the first year implementation of the Reconstruction Mapping, a teaching plan has been developed according to children’s development stages as well as teaching objectives. As shown in these three features, collaborative relationships between the school and external supporters including university researchers and teaching practitioners have been formulated to promote the Reconstruction Mapping. With development of the teaching plan, the Reconstruction Mapping could be implemented in a sustainable manner and have the possibility of being expanded to other affected areas as one of disaster recovery programs.
The school district of Kazuma was severely damaged by the tsunami that was caused by the earthquake on March 11, 2011 and many houses and buildings were demolished in the district. Therefore, it was carefully developed by considering the school situation and the children’s mental care. The objectives of the Reconstruction Mapping were to put more emphasis on helping children face their experiences of the disaster, and getting them involved in the community’s activities. It also sought to help them feel more attachment to their community, and to think of the community’s future as members of the community, rather than addressing the phrase “protecting your own lives.” In addition, it was carefully designed to make children feel positive about their findings through town-watching. These objectives are described in the teaching plan.
Two-year implementation of the Reconstruction Mapping indicates that close relationships between children and the community’s people in the tsunami-affected district could be strengthened through specific activities, leading to further collaboration between the school and the community.

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[in Japanese]

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