LAUSR

Abstract An important motivation for research in natural hazards is to reduce threats posed by natural disasters to at-risk communities. Yet, we rarely teach students how research may be used to reduce disaster risk in practice. The motivation for this study is to test the potential of service learning to impart students with both the scientific background and the skills necessary to navigate the real-world constraints of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). We present results from a service learning class taught jointly at Stanford University and Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh in the winter quarter of 2016 in collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. To reduce the potential bias implicit to a service learning approach, we modify the typical setup of service learning classes by collaborating not only with a service partner, but also with a local academic institution that we will refer to as our community partner. Our results suggest that the inclusion of a community partner may elevate the learning component of the class, as indicated by student self-assessments, but the class fell short of meeting the expectations of our service partner, the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. We speculate that one quarter is not sufficient time to build an intellectual partnership with two international partners and to design a joint service project that is sufficiently developed to be actionable. In the future, we plan to extend the class over several quarters.