A natural disaster is an event that can threaten human safety at any time and can also impact the environment. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and tsunamis can occur anywhere in the world. While disasters cannot be avoided, efforts can be made to reduce their risk.
Disaster risk can be minimized by increasing understanding of disaster mitigation through creative prevention education. Disaster education is one internal solution within the community to reduce the impact of disasters and build a culture of community responsiveness and readiness to disasters.
Creative education to improve understanding and knowledge about disaster mitigation has also become an urgency for the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia (FMIPA UI) to develop a creative disaster curriculum innovation entitled KECAK, namely the Creative Disaster Education Curriculum in various series, one of which is KECAK-L for the landslide disaster series, through the Environmental Geology and Disaster course.
In line with this, the Geology Study Program (Prodi) team from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia, consisting of lecturers and students, held a community service activity, by presenting the KECAK-L (Creative Disaster Curriculum Landslide Series) innovation at SMA Negeri 1 Depok, West Java, on August 8 and 15, 2023. There, the team provided a learning experience that was not only educational and innovative, but also interesting and creative, in a simulation of the potential risk of landslides.
This activity program, chaired by Twin Hosea W. Kristyanto, M.T., is a simulation method that focuses on showing landslide disaster events that may occur in the future.
“We believe that students’ mastery of creative education-based disaster mitigation skills is crucial, in addition to understanding the material itself. With this knowledge, it is hoped that they can manage psychological conditions such as anxiety and fear when a disaster strikes,” said Twin.
Twin and the FMIPA UI team demonstrated KECAK-L by providing illustrations and simulations. role playing or role-playing. Twin said that through this creative learning model, teaching becomes more engaging and easier for participants to understand.
“Teaching methods have become more creative, making participants more skilled at adapting the material provided by the team to current circumstances,” he said.
He continued, explaining that mitigation measures not only focus on disaster management but also on deepening participants’ understanding. The goal is to make participants more alert and responsive in responding to disasters during and after they occur.
The KECAK-L activity was carried out twice, specifically for students in grades XI IPA and XI IPS. The activity began with sharing landslide-related material to participants. However, before delivering the material, participants underwent pre-test to gauge their initial understanding. The activity continued with a landslide simulation, in which students were actively involved in creating demonstration equipment together with their teams.
The demonstration tool was made of cardboard shaped to resemble a steep slope. Then, soil was placed on top of the artificial slope in two conditions: one without vegetation and one with plants or grass on it. The cardboard slope, in both scenarios, was then watered to simulate rainfall. The purpose of this demonstration was to demonstrate that keeping the soil covering a slope green with plants can prevent landslides.
Following the activity, the team conducted a post-test to measure participants’ understanding of the material presented. The post-test results proved quite positive, demonstrating an increase in students’ understanding of landslide risk.
Twin hopes that KECAK-L will become a real example of how disaster education can be interesting and effective, as well as being a solution for SMAN 1 Depok to the problems it faces, namely increasing the capacity of students in facing disasters.
He also hopes that the benefits of this activity can have a wider impact, namely the formation of community groups that are able to adapt to the environment in disaster-prone areas.
