Disaster education for elementary school students using disaster prevention pocket notebooks and quizzes

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 continues to emphasize disaster education for disaster risk reduction. We developed a new disaster education package using a disaster prevention notebook and quizzes and investigated its benefits for disaster prevention and mitigation. The disaster prevention notebook was developed by the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) of Tohoku University. It explains how to prevent natural disasters and how to act during natural disasters. Seventy nine elementary school students participated in the new disaster education package using disaster prevention pocket notebook and quizzes or the disaster education package with cartoons and quizzes. They answered some questions before and after learning using the educational materials. Results clearly demonstrated the beneficial effects of these disaster education programs on protective actions and the prevention actions related to disasters. We discussed the advantages of the new disaster education package on disaster education. We suggest that thinking about the situation and deciding one’s own behaviors might enhance self-regulated learning which includes metacognition, strategic action, and motivation to learn. We assume that our new disaster education would facilitate metacognition, strategic action, and motivation to learn in the self-regulation learning theory.