The New Trend of Disaster Mitigation Education in Japan

To have the students learn that the natural environment and the social environment are closely related to each other when the disasters take place.

First, he students write "EARTHQUAKE" in the middle of a sheet of paper. Then they write as many topics as possible around "EARTHQUAKE, such as "fire", "life line", "collapse of buildings", "volunteers", and so on. They connect the topics to each other and add their comments on the tasks and the problems, how to improve them, and so on.

Making this maps enable the students to make their vague image of the disaster into concrete one. The comparison of the maps drawn at the beginning and at the end of the lesson may make the students notice how much they have learned during the lesson. The students who hardly draw the map become able to draw much more complicated one after a certain period of study.