On Saturday, January 24th and Sunday, January 25th, our university held an experiential event for elementary school students called "Disaster Prevention Training Using Cardboard," which was attended by approximately 40 elementary school students from the local area.
The purpose of this event was for children to simulate evacuation shelters within the venue and use familiar materials to create crafts, experiencing the process of (1) considering the purpose, (2) considering the steps, (3) taking action, and (4) verifying the process, thereby developing practical disaster prevention and problem-solving skills.
On the day, the children first received a lecture from a disaster prevention specialist on "What is disaster prevention?" and "Basic knowledge to protect lives in the event of a disaster," with serious expressions on their faces, before finally putting it into practice. With the support of our university's faculty, students, and disaster prevention specialists, the children worked on making disaster prevention bags, evacuation shelter partitions, beds, and chairs using cardboard. The children and the students actively exchanged ideas on how to make evacuation shelters comfortable and safe, with limited materials available, and worked together through repeated trial and error to create the items.
The children who participated commented, "I was surprised that with just a little ingenuity we were able to make a chair that wouldn't break. I want to teach my friends about it," "I want to treasure the disaster preparedness bag I made," and "It was fun working with my older brothers and sisters," and their satisfied expressions were striking.
Tomoe Matsumoto, a first-year student Department of Art and Design (Kyushu Sangyo University Kyushu High School), said, "We planned and prepared for the event, thinking about how we could help children learn while playing. I think that in a real evacuation shelter, mutual help across generations will be essential. I hope that through this simulated experience, the children were able to feel the importance of cooperation, and for us students, we were often inspired by the children's free-spirited ideas, so it was a very meaningful time."
[Kyushu Sangyo University, Zokei Junior College of Art and Design]
