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On December 26 2004, a huge magnitude 9.2 Mw earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia beneath the Indian Ocean. This undesea meagthrust earthquake became later known as the Sumatra-Andaman earthqauke. The earthquake generated a tsunami with waves reaching up to 30m (100ft) in height. At the time warning buoys were not in opeation in this part of the world and while the earthquake was devastating, the tsunami wave that followed was largely unwarned, especially for those living in nearby Banda Aceh, Indonesia. In all the combination of deaths fro the earthquake, tsunami and later disease, claimed the lives of more than 230,000 people.

At the time I was working as a Geography teacher in Ilford, Essex, UK. I noticed that students (I taught 11-18 year old students), were asking questions and wanted to try and understand what had occurred. I had raised money for and purchased a sesimograph from the United States in 2004 and had installed this prior to the earthquake. In fact, I had just returned from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco where I presented a poster on teaching sesismology to high school students in the UK.

The photograph, (left) shows the set up whewn I had later fitted a dampening mechanism to the setup. When the earthquake occured it was a teleseismic event and easily measured, even by my relatively old-fashioned sesimograph. This allowed me to present the data and show the animation of the p-waves ans s-waves as the earthquake sent the waves of energy around the world.

I presented a series of school assemblies, using animations and props to explain how strain energy builds up and is released along a fault and how a large tsunami wave was propgated. We later produced a series of short films that along with teaching resources were included on a CD-Rom and sent to local primary shools in the area.

I also wanted to show students how earthquakes happen and ahow shake yables could be made using a variable speed drill and an offset cam to make the table move. Then, different structures with and without aseismic design could be added and tested. I even had large iron blocks to act as buildings as I lay them on wet sansd so they could see and test what happend to teh 'structures' on unconsolidated foundations (sandy, wet soil)

This was useful because it also allowed for discussion of what happened to the 911 center in the Bay area at the time of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake - The call center was abandoned several times beacuse shaking was magnified by the land that was built on infill from the 1906 earthquake! This is important to know because learning should not only be something that takes place in schools! Below, I am attaching some images of the shake table as well as a link to the plans (shake_table.gif) of how YOU can build one too! Look out for more content based on teaching earthquakes and sesimology soon!

Okay here are the 'Silly Timmy' Comic strips featuring a 'Fairy Godmother' that rescue him from his scrapes...shame we don't all have one of these!

All the comics were created by me (Justin Sharpe) on an iPad using an App called Toon ToolKit (more information can be found here) while the characters were created by John A Abbott of Jot Studios. The story lines and montages/scenes were created by me (Justin Sharpe) , using the excellent App! I hope you enjoy reading! I am really enjoying creating the story lines that include disaster preparedness messages at their heart! 

Learning not only matters, but is fun too!

Silly Timmy Disaster Comic Episode One:

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This collection, made possible with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focuses on many aspects of children and disaster. The short, easy-to-read articles condense recent research findings to help those working in the field stay current on topics related to children—how they are vulnerable, how caregivers and emergency managers can help them, and most of all, how they can play an active role in community preparedness and response to disaster.

Please visit the online collection to learn more about the series, and why this resource was created. Because the topic has resonated with so many people, they will also continue to add articles to the collection from time to time. You’ll be able to find the complete collection, including upcoming articles, on the Children and Disasters Special Collection web page.

I have read an interesting blog written by Robert Glasser from UNISDR, with the WCDRR coming up in Cancun. I agree with many of the points made, and would like to see more culturally appropriate community/family led and oriented DRR communication and learning projects given more credence and attention. My research with #CERT and #Listos in the US is showing that these can have a more significant impact on long term cognition, behaviour sand action towards disaster risk and response. Relevance is key, so Listos target family disaster preparedness first, which within the Latino community is a huge part of life, while their gentle discussion, correction and demonstration allows for myths, including 'Grandma's home remedies' to be examined and compared against what we know from modern medicine to allow communities to transform their understanding, learning and behaviour as a result.

The link to the original blog can be viewed here: click to see the blog in a new window>> Taking his point in turn, I would like to show what we do through this website to address each point, even if it isn't on UNISDR's radar, it should be!
1. Be Engaging.

This is something I have always believed, advocated and attempted to achieve, especially with use of videos, humour and of course the Silly Timmy comic strip which is beginning to be translated into many different languages. And what was striking about this point was the example given about looking after pets, and not wanting to leave them behind following a disaster, which is why I dealt with this through the comic strip too, with one example (in English, below):




2. Respect that people have many pressing concerns.

Very true. This can become problematic and my research is finding that understanding the cultural, economic and social needs of the community you work with is paramount. Just throwing 'education' around to plug perceived knowledge gaps via social media, leaflets or posters is not enough! When undertaking research for my PhD recently, I found the following to be true:

"And while it is true that those who are not literate have coping mechanisms, they are doubly challenged when they don’t speak the local language! And this highlights a principal reason why Listos is so important: it provides easy to understand and access information about preparedness and response for emergencies without overloading participants with too much information, while delivering courses in a relatively short time-scale in their language! But the importance of having classes delivered by human beings (a as opposed to online classes or video instruction) that come from and understand the cultural nuances of the community they are working with (as well as the language) cannot and should not be underestimated. Furthermore curriculum and teaching has been designed to be flexible to a range of functional and physical needs, thereby enhancing their inclusivity. In fact these are the key underpinnings of learning intentions: being able to reach out to and engage hard-to-reach and previously assumed hard-to-teach communities by taking a holistic and flexible approach to content and delivery of curriculum."

So what is important is to make disaster preparedness, risk reduction and planning a pressing concern.

3. Build understanding and trust.

When people attend Listos classes in Santa Barbara, families often attend together, while every family brings food and it becomes a shared cultural experience, while building trust and cohesion throughout the wider community. And of course, the point about relevance is key here too. This is something we have strived to develop through our resources and efforts over the last nine years through curriculum development, resources created here and through agencies such as IFRCRC to ensure that it is up to date, relevant and compelling!

Three quick reasons:

- It builds trust. There's something about seeing people face-to-face that helps us feel a greater sense of confidence in engagement. Posting a picture is as close as we get to that in-person experience while communicating online.

- It helps you find and connect with people in-person. I'm sure many members could attest to hearing this remark at least once in the past year: "I know you. I recognize you from [insert social media tool here]!" Plus, there's nothing like being at an event and finally meeting someone that you've only known virtually. Having seen their photo for all those months makes it even sweeter to see them for real.

- It establishes you as, well, you. - You're not the Edu4drr logo. We're proud of it and think it's pretty cool, but we'd prefer to see you!

Now the how:

1. In the upper left, click on, My page .

2. On the right side of the page, Go to Options.

3. Right there at the top, we make it really easy - hit the button marked "Upload Photo".

4. You probably have a great photo of yourself somewhere on your computer. If so, navigate to that folder and file, then  Click on the Photo.

NOTE: We recommend a headshot. If you don't have one, but have other photos that could work if cropped (i.e. in a group, photo of just you but head is smaller, etc.), there are some free, easy-to-use websites likePhixr and Pixer that don't even require a log-in to upload and fix your photo.

5. Once you have found and uploaded the photo, scroll to the bottom of the page and hit Save.

That's it. That was easy, eh?