What next for Disaster Education and Communication?

Given expanded interpretations and representations of processes or outcomes considered relevant to dealing with disasters, it is timely to reconsider the width and depth of disaster education. This is relevant at all levels of formal and informal education, being driven by real demand for disaster reduction and sustainable development. Disaster education can be highly developmental in that many varied disciplines contribute, encouraging adaptive capacity for a wide range of risk reduction and emergency response issues. This presentation slot provides opportunity for reflection on what the future of disaster education could or should look like. It is premised that disaster education futures will significantly grapple with many of the disaster communication experiences and ideas considered during this ZiF study year. Key aspects include disaster education orientations variously from secondary sources, experiential learning, and from influences not necessarily possible to precisely frame. Here, it is merely proposed that the totality of what is on offer in disaster education will be much more than the sum of the individual parts. Evidence of a global appetite for dealing with disasters through education implies the ongoing importance of understanding the communication of knowledge and information generated for and from the learning implied. How therefore might disaster education engage and communicate theory, practice or policy midst the known demands for grounded learning, integrated institutional development and mixed qualitative and quantitative tools?