RISK REDUCTION EDUCATION IN PORTUGUESE SCHOOLS: THE EXAMPLE OF WILDFIRES* EDUCAÇÃO PARA A REDUÇÃO DOS RISCOS NAS ESCOLAS PORTUGUESAS: O EXEMPLO DOS INCÊNDIOS FLORESTAIS adélia n. nunes

IIn Portugal, wildfires cause huge socioeconomic and environmental impacts. This study aims to understand the contribution of the school to wildfire risk education and to explore how 9th year students rank the risks that affect our country and the municipalities in which they live. The results show that students ranked wildfires risk as the most important risk at national scale and in the area where they live. When asked about the causes, consequences and mitigation measures, most of them found it difficult to identify them. The formal geography curriculum only contained material related to risk reduction education in 2015. However, a non-formal project (PROSEPE – Education and Awareness-Raising Project for School Population), adopted reducing the risk of wildfires as one of its main goals, when it was first established in the 1990s.


Introduction
Several risks have affected the Mediterranean countries of Europe, with significant consequences on the economy and the environment of large areas. Droughts, floods and flash floods (Gaume et al., 2016), heatwaves (Fischer & Schär, 2010) landslides, degradation and desertification (Geist & Lambin, 2004;Evans and Geerken, 2004) and forest fires (Pausas, 2004;Flannigan and Harrington, 1988), are some of the most important hazards that repeatedly affected European Mediterranean countries. Although fire has been an important element in ecosystem dynamics (Pausas and Vallejo, 1999;San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2012;Nunes et al., 2014;Nunes et al., 2016) and a tool used by humans for thousands of years, nowadays wildfires rank top of all European forest problems, affecting landscape, wildlife, vegetation, soils, water and air quality (DeBano et al., 1998;certini, 2005;cerdà and Lasanta, 2005;Miranda et al., 2008;Catry et al., 2010;Malkinson et al., 2011;Silva et al., 2011;Novara et al., 2013;Bodí et al., 2014). Consequently, numerous studies have been addressed to the drivers behind wildfires in Portuguese territory, linking them mostly with climate/weather conditions (Lourenço and Gonçalves, 1990;Pereira et al. 2005;carvalho et al., 2008;Ferreira-Leite et al., 2017) and changes in the landscape mosaic, as a consequence of agricultural abandonment and a marked increase in land covered by shrubs, grass and other light vegetation that is very prone to fire (Bajocco and Ricotta, 2008;Nunes, 2012;Moreira et al., 2011;oliveira et al., 2012;Nunes et al., 2016). in Portugal, the National Education council, via Recommendation no. 5/2011 of 20 october, would recognize that the national approach to risk reduction and that the assumptions of the Hyogo 2005-2015 are not being respected and implemented. By this Recommendation has the acknowledged schooling through formal education to be an important vehicle for the promotion of risk education. They considered it important enough to introduce subjects relating to the different concepts of risk into the curricula, and are using them not only to communicate information and knowledge, but to also promote action to handle specific types of risk in practice. The final document, denominated Risk Education Framework (RERisco), was only approved in 2015, and includes the most important natural, technological and mixed risks and highlights the importance to "know the concept and the causes", to "know the main effects", to "know prevention behaviors and self-protection measures", from the first year of school to secondary.
In fact, disaster risk reduction education into school curricula aims to raise awareness and provide a better understanding of disaster management for children, teachers and communities (Tuladhar et al., 2014). Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction is about building students' understanding of the causes, nature and effects of hazards while also fostering a range of competencies and skills to enable them to contribute proactively to the prevention and mitigation of disaster. Morrissey (2007) emphasized the need to increase awareness about disasters among the school population, and the necessity to adjust the contents of plans and programs according to the types of hazards that occur in the region and at the national level.
The main aim of this study is to understand the contribution of school for risk education, particularly the wildfires risk education. To achieve this aim, specific objectives were identified: (i) to context, briefly, the problem of wildfires in Portugal in the European context; (ii) to explore how students of the ninth school year perceive and ranking the spatial variation of some risks that affect our country, on national level and into two municipalities, respectively located in central and northern Portugal, (iii) to assess if the students identify wildfires as the main risk in their municipality of residence, their causes, impacts and mitigation measures; (iv) to discuss the contribution of formal and non-formal education, specifically concerning wildfires.

Wildfires databases
The burnt area recorded yearly for the five European countries were obtained from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS, San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2012)  and environmental risks (air and water pollution, soil degradation, desertification and wildfires).
The applied questionnaire was divided in two main parts. In the first part, the respondents were asked to provide their response about the spatial incidence for each risk at national scale, based on a five point ordinal Likert scale: almost no risk (d1 = 1), slight risk (d2 = 2), moderate risk (d3 = 3), and high risk (d4 = 4) and extreme risk (d5 = 5). In the second part of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to indicate the main risk that affect their municipality of residence, and to identify the two main causes, consequences and mitigation measures in order to minimise its occurrence.  Although there is no consensus on the concept of non-formal teaching in the literature, it refers to all educational activity organised outside the formal education system, established and designed to serve citizens and achieve identifiable teaching objectives (community groups and other organisations) (Coombs, 1973;Hamadache, 1991;Hoppers, 2006). Using Eshach's (2007) concept as a reference, we can consider the clubs as non-formal educational spaces, as they demonstrate the following characteristics: typically non-sequential content; prearranged experimental activities, despite being flexible, and absence of evaluative tools. Thus, non-formal education practices, which consists in a gathering of educational practices that are not included in the formal system of education were evaluated, particularly related with a national project, adjusted to the students and teachers and structured to preserve the forest and prevent wildfires, carried out since 1993.

Why wildfires Prevention Education in Portugal?
Over the last three decades, the number of forest fires exceeded half a million ignitions and the total burnt area exceeded the 3 400 000 ha, representing more than a third of the surface area of mainland Portugal. In addition to the recorded values, 2017 was a very catastrophic year for Portuguese territory, with around 500 000 hectares burnt resulting in more than 100 deaths and thousands of injured people.

Student's risk perception: risk rankings by the students
The perceived natural and environmental risks to students    1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999     By establishing a set of fundamental lessons, it enables the students to learn to respond to a range of structural questions on geographical science: Where is it located? Why is it located there? When does it happen? How is it distributed? What are the characteristics? What are the impacts? How is it managed? The search for answers to these geographical questions leads to the need to investigate spatial distribution and the inter-relation of phenomena on the Earth's surface. in practical terms, to live in a 'Risk Society' (Beck, 1992) requires the school to exercise new capabilities that could make a proactive, informed and resilient society possible. The aim, therefore, is for contemporary school geography, alongside the other sciences, to enable students to think critically, so they are able to know, recognise, evaluate and prevent risk, as well as adopt protective measures when risk is presented.

Non-formal education PROSEPE: a 20 years project of education towards preserving the forest and reducing the wildfire risk
The PRoSEPE (Project for the Awareness and Education of the School Population), since its beginnings in 1993, has always sought to impart values and educate the population, especially the youngest, in the preservation of the environment, with particular emphasis on the promotion and preservation of the forest (Lourenço et al., 2012;Nunes et al., 2014). it has adopted as its principal objectives the defence of the forest and reducing the risk of forest fires. The development of this project within the school setting, albeit in nonformal learning contexts, was accomplished through the creation of "forest clubs", incorporating primary to secondary schools, going beyond basic education where it proved dominant, to technical professional education and even special education.
over the more than two decades that PRoSEPE has been active (1993/94-2015/16), more than 700 forest clubs were founded on a national level ( fig. 4a)    in addition to the activities above, the PRoSEPE team created and made available a set of didactic, pedagogical, promotional and scientific publications, with the intention of serving as a link between the forest clubs, but also to contribute both to the training of teachers, as well as encouraging students to take responsibility, and even to improve awareness in the community in general.
As an example, the magazine "Folha Viva (live sheet)", a publication mainly aimed at club members, also acts as a means of reaching the community. As a channel to promote the PROSEPE activities taking place, but also takes on a sense of exchange, in which each club can divulge its activities by participating in the different categories of the magazine.

Conclusion
Nowadays, wildfires constitute the major and the most The reorganisation of basic education, through the Curricular targets, in the topics associated with "Risk, Environment and Society" that will be implemented in year 9 geography will enable, without doubt, more in depth treatment of the problem of risk, including the risk of forest fires. This will enable students to acquire new knowledge, making a more active, participative and informed citizenship possible. In practice, contemporary school geography has demonstrated significant gaps over the last decades in the integrated coverage of risks, in particular the risk of forest fire, paving the way for constructed knowledge and actions within the "risk society" paradigm.
in contrast, PRoSEPE, promoted in non-formal education settings, through its pioneering work and longstanding presence over more than two decades,

Legend
Accumulative munber of forest clubs (active or not) by municipality and through its involvement with schools, teachers and students, has acquired the privileged position of being able to intervene in the mobilisation of the school community, providing and promoting dynamics and educational practices that aim for, in the widest sense of citizenship teaching, the adoption of attitudes and behaviours directed towards valuing the forests, and preventing and managing the risk of forest fire. In practical terms, through the many educational activities directed both at teachers and students, by teaching content with technical and scientific precision, and by promoting a range of diverse activities, PROSEPE has acquired a specific role in the school community, which is seen as informed and participative, not only with regards to the protection of forest values in particular, but also to environmental values in general.
This study is, however, largely exploratory in nature and further empirical studies are needed to assess how the integration of risk issues in the formal education contribute to the integration of risk management and increase the awareness of the causes, effects and mitigation measure of the type of disasters that currently affect our territory. There is, of course, the challenge of actually measuring the improvement of risk education, after the introduction in the formal curriculum the objectives, content, learning experiences in order to assess if students are, now, better prepared to take the appropriate measures in order to avoid and deal with the risk, especially with wildfire risk.