1:45 PM - 3:15 PM
[O11-P67] Survey of all students on earthquake awareness and measures to improve knowledge and conscious based on the results
Keywords:interest, measures, awareness, communicate
As part of the “Saturday AL Course,” which is offered to first and second-year high school students, a survey on earthquakes was conducted for students at Sakae Higashi Junior and Senior High Schools as part of the course "Learning and Communicating about Earthquakes and Volcanoes.” As a result, 220 respondents responded to the survey.
1. In order to survey their interest in earthquakes, we asked the question, "Have you done any research on earthquakes by yourself? As a result, “I have looked into it” was answered by 79.5%, or 175 students. Since approximately 80% of the students were interested in the subject, it can be concluded that many students are interested in the subject. However, the remaining 20% of students indicated that they had never looked into it, and were asked at the same time why. 75% of them answered that it was because they were not interested, while the rest said that they did not have time or did not know how to investigate. This indicates that there are a small number of people who are indifferent to earthquakes. In Japan, where earthquakes are always next to each other, this could be life-threatening, and it is feared that people will be unable to make the right decisions in the event of an emergency.
2. In response to the question, “What measures are you taking regarding earthquakes?”, respondents were asked about the following four items:
・Confirmation of evacuation shelter
・Furniture securing
・Preparing disaster prevention bags
・Confirmation of safety method and sharing with family members (Figure 1)
45.6% had checked evacuation centers, 40.6% had secured furniture, 49.8% had prepared disaster prevention bags, and 22.1% had confirmed safety methods and shared them with other family members.
3. We surveyed how much awareness of past and future earthquakes and related matters within the school and how many students could explain the issues raised as indicators of how much they understand about these earthquakes.(Figure 2-1). This question asked about the following four items:
・Nankai Trough Earthquake
・Temporary Information on Nankai Trough Earthquake
・Earthquake directly under the Tokyo metropolitan area
・Late Earthquake Warning Information off Sanriku, Hokkaido.
The overall trend was that almost 100% of respondents were aware of the Nankai Trough earthquake and the earthquake directly under the Tokyo metropolitan area, which have been frequently discussed in recent years. However, only 53.9% of respondents were aware of the Nankai Trough Earthquake Advisory, which was issued in the summer of 2024 and has had an impact on Japan. The earthquake warning for the aftershocks in Hokkaido and Sanrikuoki was the lowest, at 28.1%. When asked if they could explain the earthquake, 70.2%, 28.4%, 66.3%, 7.7%, and 26.9% of the respondents answered “yes,” while 20.7% said they could not explain any of them (Figure 2-2). From this, it was found that a significant percentage of respondents knew only the names but could not explain them.
Based on the results of the past surveys, the following issues can be identified:
・Understanding of earthquakes is not widespread among the general public
・Fewer than half of the population are prepared for earthquakes
・Some people are not interested in earthquakes
These are the major issues that can be identified. In order to solve these problems, we who have little knowledge of earthquakes need to communicate widely to the world. I believe that we can do what we can do now to increase the awareness of this kind of warning information, which will raise the alertness to the Nankai Trough earthquakes that will cause enormous damage to us in the future and help limit the damage, and to have many people understand what it is about and link it to disaster prevention and disaster mitigation. In addition, since the number of respondents to this survey was small and many areas were not suitable for use as a sample, we plan to survey the entire school again before JpGU and reflect the results in the poster.
1. In order to survey their interest in earthquakes, we asked the question, "Have you done any research on earthquakes by yourself? As a result, “I have looked into it” was answered by 79.5%, or 175 students. Since approximately 80% of the students were interested in the subject, it can be concluded that many students are interested in the subject. However, the remaining 20% of students indicated that they had never looked into it, and were asked at the same time why. 75% of them answered that it was because they were not interested, while the rest said that they did not have time or did not know how to investigate. This indicates that there are a small number of people who are indifferent to earthquakes. In Japan, where earthquakes are always next to each other, this could be life-threatening, and it is feared that people will be unable to make the right decisions in the event of an emergency.
2. In response to the question, “What measures are you taking regarding earthquakes?”, respondents were asked about the following four items:
・Confirmation of evacuation shelter
・Furniture securing
・Preparing disaster prevention bags
・Confirmation of safety method and sharing with family members (Figure 1)
45.6% had checked evacuation centers, 40.6% had secured furniture, 49.8% had prepared disaster prevention bags, and 22.1% had confirmed safety methods and shared them with other family members.
3. We surveyed how much awareness of past and future earthquakes and related matters within the school and how many students could explain the issues raised as indicators of how much they understand about these earthquakes.(Figure 2-1). This question asked about the following four items:
・Nankai Trough Earthquake
・Temporary Information on Nankai Trough Earthquake
・Earthquake directly under the Tokyo metropolitan area
・Late Earthquake Warning Information off Sanriku, Hokkaido.
The overall trend was that almost 100% of respondents were aware of the Nankai Trough earthquake and the earthquake directly under the Tokyo metropolitan area, which have been frequently discussed in recent years. However, only 53.9% of respondents were aware of the Nankai Trough Earthquake Advisory, which was issued in the summer of 2024 and has had an impact on Japan. The earthquake warning for the aftershocks in Hokkaido and Sanrikuoki was the lowest, at 28.1%. When asked if they could explain the earthquake, 70.2%, 28.4%, 66.3%, 7.7%, and 26.9% of the respondents answered “yes,” while 20.7% said they could not explain any of them (Figure 2-2). From this, it was found that a significant percentage of respondents knew only the names but could not explain them.
Based on the results of the past surveys, the following issues can be identified:
・Understanding of earthquakes is not widespread among the general public
・Fewer than half of the population are prepared for earthquakes
・Some people are not interested in earthquakes
These are the major issues that can be identified. In order to solve these problems, we who have little knowledge of earthquakes need to communicate widely to the world. I believe that we can do what we can do now to increase the awareness of this kind of warning information, which will raise the alertness to the Nankai Trough earthquakes that will cause enormous damage to us in the future and help limit the damage, and to have many people understand what it is about and link it to disaster prevention and disaster mitigation. In addition, since the number of respondents to this survey was small and many areas were not suitable for use as a sample, we plan to survey the entire school again before JpGU and reflect the results in the poster.