Risk reduction education in Portuguese schools: the example of wildfires
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/1647-7723_25-2_4Keywords:
School Education, wildfires risk reduction, student’s risk perception, geography curriculum, PROSEPE, PortugalAbstract
In 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.
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