WSSPC Awards in Excellence 1998

Award Recipients

Awarded Category: Outreach to Schools

Program Name Earthquake Education Through Theater Arts

Administering Agency Dell’Arte

Contact Person (Name/Title) Donald Forrest, Artistic Director

Lori Dengler, Director, Humboldt Earthquake Education Center

Address PO Box 816, Blue Lake, CA 95525

Telephone Number 707-668-5663

Fax Number 707-668-5665

1.	How long has this program been operational? Month: October Year: 1994
2.	What are the major purposes of this program? What problem(s) or issue(s) was it designed to address?
	Purposes:
	To educate students, families and the School community about seismic hazards in north coast California To educate the community at large and foster discussion through the production of interesting, thought-provoking and entertaining productions such as public service announcements and public performances. To enfranchise middle and elementary school students by making their contribution essential to creating an important, "real" product. To enlist the future general public in recognizing the importance of seismic hazards.
	Problems and Issues:
	Although north coast California has had a well-recognized seismic risk, awareness of the Cascadia subduction zone and the potential for local tsunamis is quite new. This information has received sensational treatment in the media causing interest and alarm among school children, school personnel and their families, particularly in schools located within potential tsunami inundation zones. Children are particularly vulnerable to tsunamis, which often select the most vulnerable as victims. This collaborative effort between the Education Center addresses misinformation and emphasizes real solutions for persons at risk.
3.	Describe the specific activities and operations of the program.
	Operations:
	The Earthquake Education Through Theater Arts Project is a unique collaboration between Dell’Arte and the Humboldt Earthquake Education Center (HEEC) at Humboldt State University. Dell’Arte began as a School of Physical Theatre over twenty years ago with a commitment to the "Theatre of Place", a philosophy that all programs are related to the local region and must give voice to local issues, dreams and concerns through popular theater forms In 1991, Dell’Arte began a formal relationship with local schools as the Education Through Art National Endowment for the Arts. In 1994, ETA was noted by the California Governor’s Conference on the Arts.
	All ETA projects involve a commitment from the school to integrate theater projects into the regular class curriculum. The Earthquake Education Through Theater Arts Project is an offshoot of ETA which came into being through increased concerns about earthquake and tsunami hazards triggered by the high rate of local seismicity in the 1990’s and awareness of the hazards of the Cascadia subduction zone. Once a school adopts the program, Dell’Arte and HEEC directors meet with school staff to develop consensus on the goals of the specific project and outline the tasks involved. A series of age-appropriate classroom activities involving both science and theater are proposed.
	ETA staffing consists of a Director and several assistants drawn from graduates of the School of Physical Theatre.
4.	Does this program take a new and creative approach or method? If yes, please describe.
	This program uses the Arts as a central vehicle for mitigation activities. Drama is an inherently participatory activity - for both the actor and the audience. Once cannot remain passive while engaged in physical drama. For students, acting out the movement of plate boundaries or the passage of seismic waves engraves concepts more deeply than reading about them in a book. Rehearsing the phrase "Hey, Hey, Stop fooling around It’s time to get to higher ground", will ingrain appropriate tsunami response more effectively than being told by a teacher. For the audience, watching children head to higher ground in the context of play, is likely to make firmer memories than reading a pamphlet.
	This program is also novel in using school children in "real" work. Much of children’s activities are considered by the public at large to be a lesser value than adult activities. Not only were the young actors enfranchised by watching themselves in the PSAs which continue to be aired on commercial TV, but other children identify with them and see this as children teaching grown-ups and an example of something important which kids can do.
5.	What were the program’s start-up costs and source(s) of funding?
	$12,000 Budget Source: $6,000 from a Lila Wallace - Reader’s Digest Grant to the ETA Program $6,000 of FEMA funds through the California OES, Coastal Region.
	What are the program’s annual operational costs and source(s) of funding?
	$ 5-12,000 Budget
	Source: Projects, budgets and sources of funding have varied from year to year depending upon contracts and grants. Sources of funding have included National Endowment for the Arts, Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Foundation, Humboldt Area Foundation, Humboldt State University, FEMA governor’ Office of Emergency Services and public schools.
6.	How many employees (full-time equivalent) work(ed) with this program? 4 FTE
7.	To the best of your knowledge, did this program originate in your state? Yes
	Are you aware of similar programs in other states? Possible
	In 1996, the Seattle Arts Commission presented a workshop on Earthquake Readiness Information for Arts Groups and featured the Dell’Arte Project as an example of arts-based mitigation efforts.
8.	Has the program been fully implemented? No
	If No, what actions remain to be taken?
	Dependence on soft money sources has made it difficult to plan the program beyond year to year. Arts funding has become more difficult to obtain in the past few years and post 1992 Cape Mendocino Earthquake Mitigation moneys are no longer available. One of the successes of the program is that it has continued with a modest budget and uncertain funding.
9.	Is there evidence that the program has been effective in achieving its stated purpose(s)?
	Video interviews with students and staff involved with the Project one year after completion were highly favorable. Surveys of students in schools involved with the Project compared to students from non participating schools showed higher earthquake awareness and their families were somewhat more likely to have take preparedness actions. A survey of residents in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties taken 6 months after completion of the PSA project showed that 50% of residents remembered seeing "those kids doing earthquake stuff" on TV.
10.	How has the program changed since its inception? What limitations or obstacles might other states expect to encounter if they attempt to adopt this program?
	Each year of the program specific projects have varied but the method of operation and the collaboration between Dell’Arte and HEEC has remained the same. The most essential ingredients for a program like this to succeed is theater professionals who value working in schools, and scientists who aren’t afraid to work in the arts. What has made this particular project successful is that all participants consider themselves part of the community at risk. The Dell’Arte professionals, the HEEC staff, the students and teachers, the local television stations all recognized that earthquakes and tsunamis are a fundamentally local problem and that we all have a stake in trying to solve.
11.	Additional comments:
	The WSSPC Awards program serves an important purpose in bringing innovative new programs to national attention and rewarding new ways to approach thorny mitigation issues. The Cascadia tsunami threat is a very difficult mitigation problem. The Earthquake Education Through Theater Arts project has taken a novel approach to addressing this problem and has produced interesting, informative and entertaining products which have not only touched the entire school community, but has made an impact on the general public.