Under the current educational system on the Island of Taiwan, no formal curriculum has been devoted specifically for “hazard mitigation” or “disaster prevention”. The knowledge concerning natural hazards is embedded in natural and social sciences but emphases are mainly on the causes of natural hazards and their impacts rather than the disaster mitigation.

The formal pre-college education in Taiwan, which takes 12 years, is divided into three stages, namely the elementary school (from grade 1 to 6), the junior high school (from grade 7 to 9) and high school (from grade 10 to 12). Only the first 9 years of education are compulsory in this country. Hence, if a curriculum plan is set to target most of the population, it has to start with grades 1 to 9. However, we are encountering some difficulties. In the past ten years or so, a major educational reform movement in Taiwan is under way to reduce students’ learning load as demanded by our government and the general public. Consequently, the amount of weekly school hours is cut down and the normal weekly school days are decreased to five instead of five and half days including Saturday morning. Under such circumstances, it’s almost impossible to add more materials into regular elementary and high schools education.

In order for the curriculum to fit different age groups, the curriculum is constituted of three levels. In addition, all materials developed from this project are accompanied by a set of teacher’s guides. Therefore, a total of four different levels of concepts will be developed. Each level addresses different skills essential for the corresponding age group. In L1, since the emphasis is on the behavior of the individual students, the curriculum goals are that after taking the program, students can keep calm during the earthquakes, can act according to what they have been trained, and can follow instructions. In L2, the emphasis is on students’ ability of identifying potentially hazardous sites in the environment and self-assistance during the earthquakes. In L3, students are expected to not only maintain personal safety but also assist others.

All the procedures are constructed as independent modules. The teachers can rearrange the modules to fit their needs. Or the teachers can pull out modules from different activities to come out with new activities. It’s highly flexible and teachers can use the curriculum according to their needs.

The teachers from design group will use them in the Fall semester as trial products. We can then modify them and use them as models to build the final 18 activities.  Currently, the deadline is set for the end of 2002.

        After the completion of the first three activities, we plan to introduce them to the administrators and lawmakers as well. Our goal is to have a nationwide educational program on earthquake hazard mitigation. We are proposing in the future, all students get the “earthquake passports” when they first go to schools. Every time when they finish a specific activity of the earthquake program, a stamp is placed on the passport to indicate their effort. This passport can be used to track the progress a student makes in terms of earthquake hazard mitigation. Hopefully, it will also guarantee the success of the training activities.

        The concepts and activities we presented here are still in their early development stages.  We welcome all the inputs and comments to them.