The Potential of Digitally Enabled Disaster Education for Sustainable Development Goals

Mihoko Sakurai and Rajib Shaw
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Mihoko Sakurai: Center for Global Communications, International University of Japan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032, Japan
Rajib Shaw: Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, Fujisawa 252-0882, Japan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: A sustainable and resilient local community requires a learning culture that allows them to evolve over time. Disaster education in this context is expected to be an important element for local communities. Conventionally, disaster education in Japan is provided in elementary and junior high school as an evacuation drill. After that age, the attachment with the local community becomes relatively low, which we call the black box of disaster education. This paper reports on a practical research project in Muroran City, Japan. It aimed to use digital technology to involve high school students in a disaster education program. Officials in Muroran City have been struggling with collecting young people to participate in a community leader development program for disaster risk reduction (DRR). The research project employed a cloud-based learning platform in order to appeal to high school students. A set of three workshops was conducted from November to December 2021. Three out of the five categories of DRR consciousness increased after the workshop, namely, imagination, mutual aid and interest. We observed that participants’ mindsets and behaviors changed during the workshop activities. Digital technology can contribute to context-specific disaster risk education, which we believe is important in designing a sustainable and resilient local community for the 2030s.

Keywords: disaster risk reduction; education; digital technology; local community; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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