Japan university students create card game to make disaster preparedness fun

A group of students at the Chiba University of Commerce has created a disaster preparedness card game whose name roughly translates as "Think Fast! Disaster Preparedness Match" designed to help people prepare for emergencies while enjoying games similar to Japanese "karuta" and concentration.

The project was developed by students in associate professor Kazunari Togawa's seminar in the Department of Policy Informatics in the Faculty of Policy Studies. Illustrations for the cards were produced by the Links design team, a volunteer group of students from the same faculty.

They then organized the material into 16 challenges, including "sudden torrential rain," "hazards inside the home" and "putting out a fire in its early stages." They proposed three responses to each scenario, creating 16 challenge cards and 48 response cards for a total of 64 cards.

For the "sudden torrential rain" challenge, for example, the game suggests three options: "high ground," in which people identify in advance elevated places they can evacuate to; "water bags," or preparing sandbags or other water-filled bags; and "patrols," in which members of a neighborhood association work together to clear fallen leaves from drains.

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