Implementation of a Workshop for Disaster Education on the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake Using Multi-Scale Geospatial Products Integrating GIS and Immersive VR

To understand disaster damage, ground-based and aerial photographs taken during or after hazard events are commonly used. These images are also valuable for geography education. In particular, university students in a teacher training course are required to understand the characteristics of disasters, as they will be responsible for teaching these topics to their pupils. However, some students have difficulty achieving a sufficient understanding of actual disasters because of differences in scale among photographs taken from airplanes, drones, and ground-level viewpoints. To facilitate students’ understanding of disasters, it is necessary to develop a teaching program and educational materials that can connect geospatial products across multiple spatial scales. In this study, we designed a one-day workshop program integrating GIS and VR technologies. The workshop enabled students to learn about the impacts and damage of the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake while operating two GIS applications and a VR device, allowing them to observe the area from different viewing perspectives. The workshop consisted of four parts: (1) a lecture on basic concepts of GIS and remote sensing, (2) a short lecture summarizing the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake and a WebGIS-based comparison of aerial photographs taken before and after the disaster, (3) visualization of damaged buildings and terrain using QGIS, and (4) five minutes of VR-based fieldwork using a head-mounted display. Each section lasted 90 minutes. The second section was conducted in groups of four students. This workshop was conducted as part of a graduate school course in a teacher training program, with a total of eight students participating. Students’ learning outcomes in each section were assessed through a questionnaire survey. The results indicate that although individual materials have limitations in representing regional characteristics, integrating educational materials across multiple spatial scales deepened students’ understanding of the disaster. In particular, VR-based fieldwork enhanced students’ understanding of actual disaster damage, such as collapsed buildings.