Abstract
The last few years have seen the debate on the geoethics of environmental and climatic protection growing to include resilience as a central idea within this new discipline, which holds many similarities with geography. Resilience analysis often looks at the capacity to re-establish conditions of equilibrium within a system which has been hit by a serious shock, e.g. a natural or man-made disaster. Geoethics works, in tandem with geological analyses and the geography of risk, to inform a population and develop integrated risk management in such a way as to strengthen a community’s resilience. The aim of this work is to study some people’s capacity to overcome what was potentially a disastrous event and, through a process of reconstruction, turn it into an occasion for growth. The experiment, carried out in the primary and middle schools in Aiello Calabro (Calabria, southern Italy), was conducted on the basis of the belief that there is a close relationship between a population’s having a realistic understanding of the risk of such an event, e.g. an earthquake, and high levels of resilience. We also tried to gain an insight into the relationship that may exist between resilience in primary and secondary school children and methods of coping which give an appropriate management of seismic risk. To be more precise, we try to discover whether there is a link between good/appropriate resilience and good/appropriate risk management.
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Source: Matteucci et al. 2012
Source: National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (ingv.it)
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Notes
Dr. Francesco De Pascale, as selected expert, conceived, designed and performed the experiments in the context of the PON project “We improve our skills (Educational program of native language communication)”, carried out in the primary school of Aiello Calabro, Calabria, southern Italy.
Dr. Valeria Dattilo, as selected expert, performed the experiments in the context of the PON project “We improve our skills: training course, cultural awareness and expression”, carried out in the secondary school of Aiello Calabro, Calabria, southern Italy.
The sample who filled in the questionnaires may not be large, but the results are important because represent the tendency within the class with respect to the behaviour examined (resilience and dealing with seismic risk).
The questions in the second questionnaire were the following: “What is geoethics?”, “Geoethics is about…”, “Geoethics represents the meeting point between…”, “The intervention of the geoscientist on the territory…”, “Geoethics is characterised by…”, “Among other issues, geoethics also deals with…”, “Report in their respective angles the correct words on the Hippocratic triangle”, “Have you ever experienced an earthquake?”, “If so, where were you at the time?”, “What was your reaction?”, “How should one behave during an earthquake?”, “What should one do after an earthquake?”, “Do you believe that your school would be safe in the event of seismic activity?”, “Do you believe that your home would be safe in the event of seismic activity?”, “Is there an Emergency Plan in your municipality?”, “Whose role is it to organise the Emergency Plan?”, “Is it possible to predict where and when an earthquake will occur?”, “Is it true that earthquakes always occur in the same areas?”, “What is the most common danger in the case of an earthquake?”, “How would you describe the area in which you live with regard earthquakes?”, “You think of an earthquake as an event which is…”, “Where did you get your information about earthquakes from?”, “Briefly describe your experience of seismic activity, the effect it had on objects, on your surroundings, and other people, and the acoustic effects of earthquakes”, “Draw the imaginary scene of an earthquake while you are in the classroom with your classmates and the teacher. How would you behave?”.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Professor Martin Brimble for improving the English. We are thankful to the International Association for Promoting Geoethics for publishing the summary of the research we’ve carried out on its blog (iapgeoethics.blogspot.it).
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De Pascale, F., Bernardo, M., Muto, F. et al. Resilience and seismic risk perception at school: a geoethical experiment in Aiello Calabro, southern Italy. Nat Hazards 86 (Suppl 2), 569–586 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2696-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2696-z