Experience-Based Training in Earthquake Evacuation for School Teachers

This study proposes experience-based training in evacuation due to earthquakes for school teachers. The purpose is for school teachers to develop their practical disaster response capabilities to save lives. Although disaster reduction education is important, conventional disaster reduction education in schools in Japan has been delivered in accordance with procedures from the education manual for disaster reduction. Conventional education materials may provide knowledge and skills in disaster reduction, but in order to take appropriate action as a disaster unfolds, it is important to develop practical capabilities by using the knowledge and skills acquired. In this study, we propose a method of training aimed at developing practical disaster response capabilities. We propose experience-based evacuation training to raise the response capabilities of school teachers. The proposed method employs a training simulator that reproduces disaster situations through a mixture of real and virtual space. An example of the training is provided to demonstrate its usefulness and that of the training simulator.