Engaging Universities and High Schools in Disaster Preparedness: Bridging Teaching, Research and Extension Activities

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) provides many recommendations about the importance of risk knowledge in guiding policies and actions to prevent and mitigate disaster risks and potentialize disaster preparedness. Particular references are made to involving diverse social groups, such as young people, in risk knowledge generation. However, implementing SFDRR recommendations is still challenging, especially in developing participatory methods in disaster preparedness that bridge the generations of children and youth, such as those in high schools and universities. This study discusses innovative methods of risk knowledge generation: i) participatory analysis of disaster risk creation processes, ii) decolonial participatory mapping to enhance capacities, and ii) citizen science on risk perception and communication. The participatory analysis of disaster risk creation processes was based on adapting the Pressure and Release Framework to young people. Using Sao Luiz do Paraitinga, Brazil, as a case study, students used PAR to identify and discuss the root causes, dynamic pressures, and unsafe livelihoods that explain why disasters happen in the city. The decolonial participatory mapping was based on epistemologies provided by Global South scholars, especially those discussing territoriality and place attachment. Based on this innovative method, high school students mapped the potentialities of their neighborhood. Finally, the methods related to citizen science aimed to advance its debate on social science fields, bringing the topics of risk perception and communication to engage high school and undergraduate students. Using these three innovative methods, students identified why disasters happened, the people’s perception of disaster risks and ways of communicating them, and discussed strategies for increasing their capacities to extreme events. The repertoire of methods can help enhance people’s preparedness, especially students’ skills, and abilities in managing data, information, and misinformation in emergencies, in communicating risks in social media during crises, and in co-producing contingency planning in the schools.