Disaster Risk Reduction in School Curricula: Case Studies ... - Unicef

135
Industrialized Countries
Child and children’s drawings in
a primary school classroom at
La Varenne Saint-Hilaire in France.
© UNESCO/Dominique Roger
Pedagogy
The Ministry of National Education (2010) has developed
a teacher’s guide on educating for risk responsibility, offering
an ‘anticipate, act, learn’ (‘anticiper, agir, apprendre’) model
and process for addressing risk in the curriculum as part of the
development of the future citizen. Having anticipated (i.e.,
mobilized general and specific knowledge in evaluating the risk
in the situation encountered), acted (i.e., with alert, reflective
and responsible behaviour) and learned (benefitted from personal
experience and that of others to reinforce the ability to act
prudently and efficaciously and to better anticipate the future)
(2010, 5).
A CD-ROM on Education for Sustainable Development offers
both collège and lycée level case study material and interactive
learning activities on local through global human/environment
interactions, to ‘develop autonomous responsibility for helping
create a more viable future’. It includes documents and learning
activities on maritime pollution, seismic activity in Sumatra and
Hurricane Katrina 74 .
A much celebrated and replicated Secondary School ’Students:
Risk Ambassadors’ project, winning a trophy from the Ministry
of Ecology and Sustainable Development, took place at a
secondary school in the city of Rochefort on the west coast of
France during school year 2006-7. Developed by Prevention
2000 75 in 2002, it involved teaching technical students about
local hazards through a local environmental officer and then
translating their learning into forms of communication (through
local media, online and in print form) that reached out into the
local community, exposed gaps in community understandings
of disaster prevention and galvanized community action towards
a culture of safety (UNISDR, 2007, 62-5). The approach
has continued to evolve and now goes under the name of
‘Memo’Risks’ 76 . As such, it was exhibited at the UNESCO
World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development
(ESD), Bonn, Germany, in March/April 2009. The conference
documentation describes the approach as follows:
Memo’Risks teaches a local and practical disaster reduction
education. (It) associates the city and the educational
institution in a global project for communication upon major
risks. Based upon a true partnership, the project couples
risk education among children with risk awareness among
the population. The method, highly multidisciplinary,
applies to natural and technological risks, and is adaptable
to any territory and any language. It leans on the memory
of past disasters, local inhabitants' awareness of the risks,
and an understanding of what is at stake within the
community. It raises adult awareness and leads the school
to take all necessary preparation to face crisis. Finally,
it gives the kids an opportunity to take part in public life
and encourages authorities to lead more efficiently their
mission of spreading preventative information to the
inhabitants 77 .
74
Ibid. The CD ROM, Societies Faced by Risk, is an Editions Belin Terra Project
publication. ISBN 978-2-9155-9964-0.
75
http://www.prevention2000.org/cat_nat/reseau/page1.htm
76
http://www.memorisks.org/
77
http://www.esd-world-conference-2009.org/en/esd-projects-exhibition/
europe-and-north-america.html
Disaster Risk Reduction in School Curricula: Case Studies from Thirty Countries