Children represent a particularly vulnerable population in disasters. Disaster Risk Reduction refers to a systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and reducing risks of disaster through sets of interventions towards disaster causes and population vulnerabilities. Disaster Risk Reduction through the education of the population, and especially children, is an emerging field requiring further study.

To test the hypothesis that an educational program on Disaster Risk Reduction can induce a sustained improvement in knowledge, risk perception, awareness, and attitudes toward preparedness behavior of children.

A Disaster Risk Reduction educational program for students aged 10-12 was completed in an earthquake-prone region of Jordan (Madaba). Subject students (A) and control groups of similarly aged untrained children in public (B) and private (C) schools were surveyed one year after the program. Surveys focused on disaster knowledge, risk perception, awareness, and preparedness behavior. Likert scales were used for some questions and binary yes/no for others. Results were collated and total scores averaged for each section. Average scores were compared between groups and analyzed using SPSS.

Students who had completed the Disaster Risk Reduction program were found through Levene’s test to have statistically significant improvement in earthquake knowledge (5.921 vs. 4.55 vs. 5.125), enhanced risk perception (3.966 vs. 3.580 vs. 3.789), and improved awareness of earthquakes (4.652 vs. 3.293 vs. 4.060) with heightened attitudes toward preparedness behavior (8.008 vs. 6.517 vs. 7.597) when compared to untrained public and private school control groups, respectively.

Disaster Risk Reduction education programs can have lasting impacts when applied to children. They can improve students’ knowledge, risk perception, awareness, and attitudes towards preparedness. Further work is required to determine the frequency of re-education required and appropriate age groups for educational interventions.