Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology equips teachers on how to communicate tsunami hazards

Press Release:

by Gideon C. Corgue

Pagadian City – The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) in cooperation with the Department of Education, United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) organized a three-day teacher’s training on Learning to Communicate Tsunami and Tsunami hazards on January 25-28 at Bay Plaza Hotel here.

PHIVOLCS Director Renato U. Solidum Jr. said the training is designed to train teachers in learning to communicate Tsunami hazards by providing innovative earthquake and tsunami information materials.

In the training, teachers are trained on how to effectively convey the information to their students. “It empowers teachers to increase their knowledge and understanding on the hazards of earthquake and tsunami with the end in view of transferring their learnings to their students,” Solidum explained.

Solidum said the project is being implemented by UNESCO-UNESCAP in the four countries of Southeast Asia (SEA) namely: Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and East Timor where earthquake and tsunami experiences will be shared through comprehensive information materials.

In the Philippines, Solidum said Metro Manila and Pagadian were the two lucky cities chosen as pilot areas for the project. “Pagadian City was chosen as one of the pilot areas because it was the major city which was greatly affected by the Moro Gulf earthquake and tsunami on August 17, 1976. It claimed the greatest number of casualties,” Solidum said.

“While Metro Manila has not yet experienced natural disaster like what Pagadian had , these innovative materials have to be shared with them, being a prime city,” Solidum added.

Solidum said three information materials will be shared to the participants of the training: first, the big poster that can be easily used in the classroom where power point presentation will no longer be needed; second, a poster that can be used by the differently-abled persons; and third is a video using English as a medium with Tagalog translation on the screen to let the children better understand the hazards of natural disasters.

“We are also educating the participants on how to use deaf-key messages,” Solidum stressed.

He said the training will be done in three batches, with 40 participants for each batch.

PIA9-ZDS/Gideon C. Corgue