A lesson plan for studying natural disaster risk using GIS－Using the perspectives of both natural and human geography－

 Geography is a subject included in the Japanese high school curriculum and must be studied by all students. Japan experiences more natural disasters than any other country in the world, as demonstrated by the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. Therefore, the education curriculum in Japan includes the instruction of natural geographical concepts and their utilization in the consideration of natural disaster risks together with a human geographical perspective. In Japan, GIS are available for anyone to use. This allows students in high school geography classes to use computers to consider natural disaster risks in their own areas. In this lesson plan, students first learn about where floods, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic disasters occur. Then, students learn about the mechanisms by which they occur from actual examples. Finally, based on geographical concepts, they use GIS to analyze the disaster risks in their immediate area. Through this lesson plan, students will gain competency in natural disaster generation mechanisms and disaster prevention. We would very much appreciate your thoughts on this lesson plan.