School-based education for disaster risk reduction

Educating children and youth about disaster risk reduction and resilience is now front and centre around Australia, based on research that has identified the valuable role that children play in the safety of their households and communities.

The importance of educating children on hazards and disasters was recognised both in the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and the 2011 National Strategy for Disaster Resilience. CRC research led by Prof Kevin Ronan (CQUniversity) and Dr Briony Towers (RMIT University) has evaluated disaster risk reduction and resilience programs in Australian primary and secondary schools to find out how these programs contribute to the mitigation and prevention of disaster impacts on lives and property.

Bushfire education has been evaluated in several states, including New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. In Victoria, the Country Fire Authority and State Emergency Service used the research to design a student-centred, inquiry-based, disaster resilience education program for students at year levels 7, 8 and 9. The program was assessed to inform strategies for scaled implementation in schools across the state.  

CFA’s Survive and Thrive program for students in Grades 5 and 6 has also been evaluated in both Anglesea and Strathewen, with the findings informing the development of community-based approaches to bushfire education to specific high-risk areas around Victoria. The Strathewen component has also demonstrated the value of bushfire education for children in fire affected communities and will provide a guiding model for future recovery programming. 

Harkaway Primary School is learning from the the success of the Firestorm program at St Ives North Public School in New South Wales, and implementing a similar, project-based program, which is providing a valuable opportunity to study the processes and outcomes of this approach. 

New South Wales Fire and Rescue have used the research to review their school-based Fire ED program. Based on this, firefighters now know the specific topics they need to educate children on to increase fire awareness and safety.

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service is also using the skills, knowledge and expertise of the research team in a number of ways. A change in NSW primary school curriculum now sees bushfire studied across the state by years 5 and 6 every two years. To assist in this educational change, the NSW RFS has redeveloped their schools’ education webpage to reflect inquiry-based learning principles, with information for teachers and students.

The NSW Rural Fire Service also drew on the expertise of the research team to inform the development of the ‘Guide to Working with School Communities’, which supports volunteers and staff to effectively engage primary school students in learning and action for house fire and bushfire safety. The Guide follows the earlier publication of a CRC ebook, based on the same principles that if you educate children on fire safety, families and the wider community will also benefit.

The Bushfire Patrol program run by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services Western Australia has also been evaluated, with the refined program helping to ensure that children have the knowledge and skills they need to participate in bushfire planning and preparedness in their own homes. In the remote Kimberley region, DFES used the learnings to design a specific education program suitable to such a unique area. The North West Bushfire Patrol program was created to be geographically and culturally appropriate for the area, which has a large Indigenous population. The program covers all year levels of primary school and includes appropriate learning activities for each age group.

The benefits are flowing outside traditional emergency management agencies too. The Australian Red Cross is using findings of a mixed-methods, pre-post study to refine its disaster resilience education program, the Pillowcase Project.

Nationally, CRC researchers are actively engaged in the Disaster Resilience Education for Young People initiative, in partnership with the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. This initiative has allowed the project to actively engage with educators from across the country and to contribute to an online resource.

This overall set of evaluations represents stepped change in the first five years of this program of research, with the next steps geared towards enhancing and implementing disaster resilience education in schools, with the goal of providing additional benefits for children, schools, households and communities.  

Further highlighting the international benefits of this research, emergency service agencies overseas have taken on board findings to develop their own child-centred disaster risk reduction programs.