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Supporting Sustainable Development Through Early-Life DRR Learning Opportunities: UK School Insights

Pawlik, Maciej; Kitagawa, Kaori; (2025) Supporting Sustainable Development Through Early-Life DRR Learning Opportunities: UK School Insights. Sustainability , 17 (13) , Article 5671. 10.3390/su17135671. Green open access

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Abstract

The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme environmental phenomena mandate further actions to protect the most vulnerable groups, especially children. Traditionally, children have been excluded from conversations about disasters; however, this exclusion is reductive and perpetuates false ideas about children’s capacity to engage with safety information and materially manifest sustainable practices in their life. Such a reality is also impractical because early exposure through learning opportunities can yield engagement in sustainable development in adulthood. This research sought to improve understanding about children’s capacity to engage in DRR information. This study reviewed posters created by 7-year-old children at a primary school in the UK. These were produced as part of prior climate change workshops and included an illustration of a flood safety kit with items children would choose to have with them if there was an emergency (e.g., flooding event). Items included were counted and tallied to identify trends. The results demonstrated the capacity of children in this age group to select practically useful items for their safety in flooding emergencies. Based on findings, this study advocates for greater inclusion of children within disaster preparedness activities and the production of more tailored DRR learning opportunities to engage children within their school environment.

Type: Article
Title: Supporting Sustainable Development Through Early-Life DRR Learning Opportunities: UK School Insights
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3390/su17135671
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.3390/su17135671
Language: English
Additional information: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: disaster risk reduction; UK; primary school children; flooding; safety perceptions; sustainable development
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10210097
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