Reducing multi hazard risk for tomorrow’s citizens: citizen science as a means to embed disaster risk reduction into primary schools’ learning in Quito (BARCLAYJU20SCIGCRF)

In hazard prone regions of the world, sustainable development demands the integration of multi-hazard disaster risk into urban planning and decision-making. So, the residents of tomorrow’s cities will need to be not just hazard aware but hazard ‘wise’: with a firm understanding of not just how and why hazards develop and transform into disaster but also their own role in mitigation and preparedness with a historical perspective.

This interdisciplinary project will investigate how we create these ‘hazard wise’ citizens by embedding interdisciplinary learning in the school’s curriculum in the case study regions of Quito in the Urban Risk Hub(iv). The aim is to use citizen science to generate ‘experiential learning’ of the relationship between hazard occurrence and local and global impacts (ii) as well as incorporating a historical analysis to understand why “disasters are not natural” but a product of socio-political decisions (Mora, 2009). During the course of their training the student will be expected to develop and maintain a network of instruments (RaspberryShakes and mini –meteorological stations) to monitor local and global events with primary school age children across 4 schools across the Hub’s Quito case study locations. These instruments and their data will act as a ‘gateway’ to develop interest and discussion about the complexities of the relationship between risk mitigation and sustainable livelihoods (see e.g. Barclay et al., 2019). The research student will develop research strategies to not only analyse the monitoring data with the participants but to understand the learning opportunities this creates, and evaluate its efficacy in creating tomorrow’s ‘hazard wise’ citizens.

https://people.uea.ac.uk/j_barclay

For more information on the project’s supervisor, please visit: https://people.uea.ac.uk/j_barclay
Type of programme: PhD
Start date of project: October 2020.
Mode of study: full time.
Studentship length: 3 years. (3 year studentships have a (non-funded) 1 year ‘registration only’ period).
Location: UEA.
Entry requirements:
a) acceptable first degree: any affiliated with the Geological Sciences or an appropriate type of social science.
b) standard minimum entry requirement is 2:1.

Eligibility requirements

This is a highly collaborative project that will involve co-supervisors from EPN and USFQ in Ecuador. We expect candidates to: have a good knowledge of natural hazards (predominantly geophysical) particularly in a Ecuadorian context, their monitoring and techniques for analysis.

Candidates must hold an undergraduate degree (minimum UK 2:1 or equivalent) related to Geological Sciences or an appropriate Social Science and be able to undertake fieldwork in Ecuador over several months during the project; In addition to meeting UEA Minimum English Language Requirements, fluency in Spanish is highly desirable and will be required for this project.