Gemma Musacchio

Piovono idee! (Cloudy with a Chance of Ideas!): An Interactive Learning Experience on Hydrogeological Risk and Climate Change

In 2011, on October the 25th a devastating flood hit the Vara and Magra valleys in Italy and left an unforgettable scratch in the inhabitants’ minds. Piovono idee! (Cloudy with a Chance of ideas!) is an active journey of discovery and training on hydrogeological risk, and climate change. Land preservation and safety of people living on it are issues which we would like to help citizens get perception about, in order to instill awareness on the actions that can be taken towards risk mitigation. Piovono idee! stemmed from this belief and it is the result of a collaborative planning, in which primary and secondary school students, living within cities heavily hit by the flood, took actively part. Children were helped by experts and scientists to build an exhibition devoted to hydrogeological risk. Here interactive workspaces, games and educational laboratories allow visitors explore concepts, phenomena and their consequences on land and inhabitants. Issues are addressed from a daily actions perspective, where everybody might make the difference towards sustainability and trigger good practices on natural hazards risk reduction.

Laboratory Activities for Seismic and Volcanic Hazards Education: A Challenge for Scientists

Balanced information and education are fundamental prerequisites for risk prevention and preparedness. Among others, children embody our best chance to implant appropriate behaviors that will be recalled during hazardous situations and to involve adults according to a knowledge chain reaction. In this work, scientists challenge their communication skills to built a set of hands-on and learn-by-play based laboratory activities, for primary and secondary schools, addressing three major issues: (1) the location of earthquakes and volcanoes on Earth; (2) earthquakes and eruptions mechanisms; (3) earthquakes unpredictability. Students are asked to place volcanoes and earthquakes epicenters (issue 1) on a wooden plate puzzle according to Plate dynamics. To addresses eruption mechanisms (issue 2) and related hazard, we use backing soda forced blowing out from a volcano vent and suggest that a pyroclastic flow is fast, it can spread over a large area and raise high up to the stratosphere. Earthquake mechanisms (issue 2) are discussed describing the energy buildup, release, and transfer, using a wooden sticks bend-and-break analogy. The display of acoustic waves caused by the breakage in different situations allows understanding of both the rupture energy and the wave attenuation. Earthquakes occurrence (issue 3) is addressed using steadily pulled blocks sliding on a frictional surface, where pins simulate asperities. These activities were tested, involving thousands of students. Discussions with students and teachers and the analysis of the answers to specific questionnaires gave us confidence that we proposed proper tools to raise risk awareness.

KnowRISK on Seismic Risk Communication: The Set-Up of a Participatory Strategy- Italy Case Study

KnowRISK (Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements) is a European project that addresses prevention measures to reduce non-structural damage caused by earthquakes. It is built on risk communication and takes action on pilot areas of the three participating countries: Portugal, Iceland, and Italy. The setting up of risk communication strategies in the project stands on the understanding local communities fragility, on their direct engagement, and on a holistic approach to vulnerability. The level of relevance of seismic compared to other hazards, the understanding, the memory of past disasters are indicators that affect the way a risk is perceived and preventive measures are taken. Similarly, the level of education, wealth, exposure to other, social, risks are aggravation parameters in risk computation to be accounted for when we communicate risk. Strategies for risk communication in KnowRISK rely on schools and citizen’s engagement, citizen’s science activities, tools for raising awareness.

The KnowRISK Action for Schools: A Case Study in Italy

“Know your school: be safe!” is a risk communication campaign, within the KnowRISK (Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements) project, involving schools in three European countries, namely Portugal, Italy and Iceland. Its main aim is to facilitate school communities’ access to experts’ knowledge on non-structural seismic risk reduction. In Italy we implemented a learning strategy to capture young people attention. We believe students will be influential in turning scientific knowledge to practical know-how. The strategy is based on Situated Learning Episode (EAS), where homework is for learning and skills, and classwork is for reworking and understanding. The KnowRISK-EAS starts and ends with two focus groups where students, and experts rework concepts and discuss best practices. Students are asked to implement a communication product addressing their peers. The assignment has a double goal: it helps to activate reflexive learning; it will be a project tool to trigger risk reduction attitude within schools communities.

Development of a Common (European) Tool to Assess Earthquake Risk Communication

This paper reports work on an on-going EC project called KnowRISK aimed at reducing the seismic risk from non-structural elements in buildings. Specifically it reports work on the development of a European tool to assess the effectiveness of risk communication interventions and awareness raising training with middle and high school children in case study areas in Portugal, Italy and Iceland. It describes the difficulties research teams faced in agreeing a theoretical framework and in devising the survey tool. Although they all agreed it was essential to have a common survey if the findings from the research were to be compared across the three countries, one year into the two-year project two of the teams were moving in different directions. This was significant since some of the pre-intervention surveys had already been conducted. Both theoretical frameworks had merit and each of the questionnaires were capable of assessing the efficacy of the training. However, they were in no way comparable. Finally the paper details how these difficulties were resolved and a common questionnaire was devised that embodied virtues from both surveys. This was then applied in all three countries to provide comparable data, the findings from which will be reported elsewhere.

Urban Disaster Prevention Strategies in the UPStrat-MAFA Project: From Risk Analysis to Communication

The UPStrat-MAFA (Urban Disaster Prevention Strategies using Macroseismic Fields and FAult Sources) project, funded by the European Commission, had a multi-disciplinary approach to disaster prevention that encompassed strategies based on the analysis of the level of risk and information. Use of macroseismic intensity data and its probabilistic treatment was one of the successful innovations of the project. The method allowed incorporation of knowledge of seismic source, faults and their properties to estimate hazard and provide valuable insights on the level of expected shaking during future earthquakes. A holistic approach to risk assessment was one of the most relevant contributions of this project. It was implemented with a new concept of global damage (the disruption index, DI) that provides a systemic way to measure earthquake impact on urban areas and helps in prevention strategies, as well as in decision-making for emergency planning and post-disaster activities. The project strongly relied on prevention strategies based on education and communication of risk. Analysis on the levels of education was performed and weaknesses identified. Various educational tools were prepared: video games for children and audio-video products for the general public. The results and achievements of the project were widely distributed to both the general public and experts.

Risk Perception and Knowledge: The Construction of the Italian Questionnaire to Assess the Effectiveness of the KnowRISK Project Actions

In this paper we describe the design of the Italian version of the KnowRISK (EU project Know your city, Reduce seISmic risK through non-structural elements) questionnaire. Purpose of the questionnaire is to evaluate if the actions of the KnowRisk project can promote in students and in the people involved, attitudes and behaviours to reduce seismic risk. In the first months of the KnowRisk project, a questionnaire was designed to assess the starting point (T0) on seismic risk Perception, Knowledge of risk and Practice (PKP) of students and public in general before the project actions. Practice was meant in terms of intention to act. The first versions of the KnowRISK questionnaire were built around four theme questions: Who are you?; Do you feel safe?; What do you risk? What would you do?. We also present a preliminary data analysis of the answers collected between March 29 2016 and May 12 2016 in three schools (one each) of the Lombardia (N = 127), Lazio (N = 24) and Liguria regions (N = 14) for a total of 165 students. From this experience, we derived the guidelines for the construction of a common questionnaire of the KnowRISK project: (a) to assess in different countries the effectiveness of a project it is preferred to have a common questionnaire; the questionnaire should consider both qualitative and quantitative aspects. In this regard it is helpful to use Likert scales and methods such as the semantic differential that consider both aspects and they allow quantitative scores which are amenable to sophisticated statistical data analysis; (c) there are three important dimensions to assess project effectiveness: perception; knowledge; and intention to act to reduce the risk.

How to Survive Earthquakes: The Example of Norcia

In this paper lessons are extracted from the comparison between the very different consequences that similar earthquakes had on the neighbouring towns of Norcia and Amatrice during the 2016 seismic crisis of central Italy. It was found that the differences in damage were essentially due to the strengthening of most houses in Norcia done during the previous decades. This is also likely to lead to a much faster recover of the economy and livelihood in Norcia, as Amatrice needs to be entirely rebuilt.

KnowRISK Practical Guide for Mitigation of Seismic Risk Due to Non-structural Components

Good performance of non-structural elements can be decisive in saving lives and costs when an earthquake strikes. The European project KnowRISK aims to educate and encourage households to take the necessary precautionary measures to protect people, houses, and contents. Preparedness and prevention act on community resilience. Within the KnowRISK project, the idea of a Practical Guide has been conceived suggesting seismic mitigation solutions for non-structural components to non-experts stakeholders. It is intended to guide people into the first steps of prevention in a straightforward manner, minimizing or avoiding injuries, damage, and long-term financial consequences. The novelty of the Guide belongs to his philosophy: a path through increasing challenges corresponds to a growing level of safety. The idea is that anyone can mitigate seismic risk in its own environment by adopting simple and low cost measures. The Practical Guide may contribute to increase risk awareness. This kind of initiatives if undertaken at larger scales may also enhance social resilience.