Global fluctuations in disaster frequency and intensity have promoted the international community to adopt proactive measures to strengthen disaster resilience (Fazeli et al. 2024). Conceptually known as disaster risk reduction (DRR), this effort, within the Sendai Framework, reflects a global policy shift from reactive disaster response to a more holistic approach that emphasises the identification, assessment and reduction of risk through an understanding of vulnerability, exposure, capacity and efforts to strengthen resilience (Aitsi-Selmi et al. 2015; UNDRR 2015). Within this effort, the education plays a pivotal role in cultivating risk awareness and adaptive capacities from an early age (Lin & Lee 2025; Rahma, Mardiatno & Hizbaron 2024).

Effective disaster education extends beyond theoretical knowledge to encompass experiential and participatory learning, such as simulations, evacuation drills and the transmission of cross-generational experiences, which collectively enhance preparedness and responsiveness (Grau Vila 2024). Schools, therefore, function not only as centres of learning but also as vital hubs for disseminating disaster-related knowledge and resilience practices to families and the broader community throughout the mitigation, response and recovery phases (Cels et al. 2023; Kawasaki et al. 2022; Pan 2023).

A key strength of DRR education lies in its potential to foster resilience among children and adolescents, who are often among the most vulnerable in hazard-prone environments (Kyambade, Sewante & Namatovu 2025; McPherson & Casanueva Baptista 2024). Empirical studies show that young people can acquire survival skills through contextual, engaging and participatory approaches – skills that not only support their own safety but also contribute positively to their households’ disaster preparedness (Harada, Shoji & Takafuji 2023; Hoque et al. 2021). Approaches incorporating drama, role-play and real-life simulations have been demonstrated to increase disaster literacy, enhance adaptive capacity and strengthen students’ emotional and social resilience (Bubeck et al. 2024; Di Bucci, Dolce & Santini 2025). In this process, teachers serve as both facilitators of participatory learning and influential resilience leaders within their communities (Fu & Zhang 2024).

In Indonesia, particularly within local and indigenous communities, traditional knowledge has long served as an effective foundation for disaster resilience. A well-known example is ‘Smong’, an oral tradition from the Simeulue Island community that enabled residents to recognise early tsunami signs and evacuate effectively during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, resulting in remarkably low casualty rates (Rahman et al. 2024). The term Smong, derived from the Devayan language, describes the sequence of shaking ground, receding seawater and the arrival of giant waves and urges immediate evacuation to higher ground (Rahman et al. 2022). As a form of indigenous knowledge, Smong represents a critical asset for DRR, bridging historical experiences and future preparedness within disaster education (Pisa 2024; Suarmika et al. 2022; Tavares, Alves & Vásquez 2021; Trogrlić et al. 2021; Widuri et al. 2023). Consistent with Kinol et al. (2023), localised and culturally embedded communication tends to resonate more deeply than generic global messages, as it connects with people’s lived experiences and local realities.

Despite these insights, existing studies often treat indigenous knowledge and participatory pedagogical approaches as separate domains or view students primarily as passive recipients rather than active contributors to resilience-building processes. Few studies have explicitly integrated local cultural narratives, performing arts and student participation within a comprehensive disaster learning model. This gap highlights the need to explore how local wisdom-based participatory theatre, such as Smong Nandong (Figure 1), can serve as an educational medium that engages students cognitively, emotionally, socially and behaviourally in strengthening disaster resilience.

Integrating Smong into learning activities through performing arts, particularly participatory drama, offers a meaningful way to deepen student engagement and understanding. Drama does more than transmit information; it fosters empathy, encourages behavioural transformation and supports the development of shared awareness and collective responsibility towards disaster risks (Brown et al. 2017; Busby et al. 2024; Khusna et al. 2023). Against this backdrop, the present study aims to: (1) develop Nandong Smong drama guidelines and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of their implementation in enhancing tsunami disaster resilience among high school geography students in Aceh, Indonesia.

This study aims to examine the level of disaster resilience among high school students in Simeulue regency, Aceh Province, Indonesia and to evaluate the effectiveness of integrating Nandong Smong, a well-known form of local wisdom used to recognise and respond to tsunamis, into classroom learning through drama-based role-play.

This research was conducted at a secondary school on the coast of Simeulue Island (SHS 1 Salang, Simeulue regency, Aceh) (Figure 2). In terms of geotectonics, this region is located in an earthquake and tsunami-prone zone because of tectonic activity between the Indo-Australian and Eurasian plates. Historically, the threat of tsunamis has not only caused safety concerns but has also significantly impacted local livelihoods. Some communities rely on fishing, coastal agriculture and trading activities, which are highly vulnerable to tsunamis. This situation places vulnerable groups, such as children and their families, in a layered risk environment, emphasising the need for contextual interventions through education on sustainable DRR, including the preservation of local wisdom such as role-playing games at school.

A quantitative experimental research design was adopted, employing a one-group pre-test–post-test design to measure changes in students’ disaster resilience before and after the intervention. This design was chosen to determine the effectiveness of the pedagogical strategy while allowing for controlled assessment of learning outcomes.

The study involved 20 high school students who were selected using purposive sampling. The sampling decision was based on the relevance of the geography curriculum content – particularly topics related to disaster mitigation – to ensure that participants had appropriate baseline exposure to the subject matter. The selected school is situated within Simeulue regency, the cultural origin of Nandong Smong, making it a suitable context for examining the integration of local wisdom into disaster education.

Inclusion criteria were applied in determining the sample and controlling participant variation. These criteria included students at SHS 1 Salang at the same grade level and of relatively homogeneous ages. Meanwhile, the sample size was determined using a purposive sampling approach, taking into consideration contextual appropriateness and subject accessibility, such as geography subjects. To ensure that all participants were of comparable ability, a pre-test was conducted before the intervention. Although the participants came from a relatively homogeneous environment, individual variations in experience of the tsunami were recognised, representing the real conditions of coastal communities living with the risk of tsunamis.

The intervention consisted of a structured learning activity in which students learned about Nandong Smong through role-playing and drama performance techniques. The educational drama was developed based on a literature review of local cultural narratives, historical accounts of past tsunami events and existing studies on the role of Nandong Smong in community disaster preparedness. The role-play activity allowed students to enact scenarios related to tsunami recognition, early warning and response behaviours embedded within the tradition.

Data on students’ disaster resilience were collected using a 25-item validated test instrument, designed to assess key dimensions such as hazard knowledge, preparedness behaviour, risk perception and decision-making during disaster events. The instrument underwent content validation by experts in disaster education and was piloted to ensure clarity and reliability prior to administration. To test the validity of questions, a formula is needed, specifically the product-moment correlation formula. The validity of the instrument questions was tested on 20 respondents outside the research sample (Table 1).

Refer to the map of the Simeulue coastal area presented earlier. According to the local wisdom of Smong Nandong, the community is taught to quickly move away from the coast to higher ground after a strong earthquake and when seawater recedes. If a village on the map is about 300 m from the shoreline and has two evacuation hills, the most effective mitigation strategy in line with Smong Nandong is:

Next, we analysed Table 1, which shows an r-hitung value of 0.458. This value was then compared with the r-table value, calculated based on the number of respondents at a 5% significance level, which is 0.444.

The pre-test was administered before the intervention, and the post-test was conducted immediately after the role-play activity to measure learning gains attributable to the drama-based integration of Nandong Smong. In this study, we carefully examined the Hawthorne effect, which is the tendency of participants to modify their behaviour and enhance their performance because they know they are being observed in a research setting. To reduce the impact of this effect, we conducted the activity in a regular learning environment without informing participants of the intervention, allowing their natural behaviour to be observed. Additionally, the teacher’s instructions, such as that student participation would not influence academic assessment, helped to lessen psychological pressure and behavioural bias. Through this approach, we believe we successfully minimised the Hawthorne effect.

Both descriptive and inferential quantitative analyses were employed. Descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations and percentage scores) were used to present the distribution and general trend of students’ disaster resilience levels. Inferential analysis was conducted to test the effectiveness of the intervention. A paired comparison of pre-test and post-test scores was used to determine whether the role-play learning strategy significantly improved students’ disaster resilience. All analyses were conducted using appropriate statistical software.

Additionally, qualitative insights from literature studies informed the contextualisation of Nandong Smong within the educational drama but were not used as a primary data source.

The principle that ‘the past teaches the future’ served as the philosophical foundation for designing Nandong Smong as a pedagogical medium for disaster resilience education. This concept resonates with the principle of uniformitarianism, proposed by Hutton and Lyell, which posits that present-day processes can illuminate historical events (Piangiamore & Maramai 2024). Within the disaster context, this perspective is particularly relevant because the historical experience of the Simeulue community in responding to tsunamis has been preserved through the oral tradition of Smong. Today, these narratives are not only remembered but are actively transmitted through educational settings, including drama-based learning. Thus, history becomes more than a chronological record; it functions as a contextually effective pedagogical tool that supports the internalisation of disaster knowledge (Koopman 2023).

Schools occupy a central role in building disaster resilience, functioning not only as learning environments but also as key social institutions in post-disaster recovery and transformation (Cels et al. 2023; Johnston, Taylor & Ryan 2022). Yet the contribution of schools to disaster mitigation and capacity building is often undervalued (Pal et al. 2023). Teacher involvement is therefore crucial in cultivating student resilience (Parrott et al. 2025). However, existing studies demonstrate that disaster education in schools often remains predominately cognitive, lacking experiential components such as simulations and practical exercises (Asiah et al. 2023; Maryani 2021). In response, the integration of Nandong Smong into drama represents a strategic educational innovation that engages students cognitively, affectively and psychomotorically.

The findings indicate that the participatory, drama-based intervention contributed meaningfully to enhancing students’ understanding of tsunami hazards and their overall disaster resilience. The increase in post-test scores relative to pre-test scores among most participants demonstrates individual progress and aligns with Bubeck et al. (2024), who argue that participatory theatre is an effective tool for risk communication, especially when embedded within community-based approaches. Although a few students exhibited stagnation or decline, the overall upward trend supports the value of participatory methodologies in disaster education.

The initial pre-test score distribution, which skewed low, further highlights the limited baseline understanding of disaster concepts among students, particularly regarding tsunamis. The rightward shift in the post-test distribution illustrates not only increased understanding but also a more uniform learning outcome across participants. This outcome suggests that the intervention successfully accommodated varying levels of prior knowledge, a finding consistent with Di Bucci et al. (2025), who emphasise the contribution of role-play to strengthening DRR competencies. Figure 6 presents an example of how the Nandong Smong script was visualised and integrated into the drama intervention.

While the increase in scores was steady rather than dramatic, with a slight trendline slope and a low R² value, these variations underscore the diverse ways students respond to the same learning stimulus. Such disparities reflect the influence of contextual factors – including family support, information access and school facilities – on individual learning trajectories, as discussed by Rezaei and Mohammadinia (2025). These findings highlight the necessity of tailoring disaster education to local contexts and student needs, rather adopting uniform instructional models.

More broadly, the results reinforce the importance of participatory and culturally grounded approaches in disaster education. Scholars such as Azad et al. (2022) and Choudhury et al. (2021) emphasise that external interventions frequently overlook local voices, knowledge and heritage. A drama-based approach, anchored in local wisdom such as Nandong Smong, does more than convey cognitive information – it activates emotional engagement, empathy and social cohesion, consistent with Busby et al. (2024) on the transformative potential of applied theatre.

Therefore, effective disaster education must move beyond cognitive delivery to incorporate creative, experiential and culturally rich methods. In doing so, it fosters not only individual competencies but also collective resilience. The study demonstrates that integrating local cultural expressions into school-based programming contributes both to preserving heritage and to building disaster-ready communities. Ultimately, Nandong Smong as a drama affirms the synergistic relationship between cultural continuity and disaster resilience, ensuring that vital local wisdom persists while equipping younger generations with practical skills for future hazards. This study has limitations, such as the number of participants being limited to only one school, even though there are 25 high schools on Simeulue Island. Therefore, we recommend implementing this role model in all schools to achieve more definitive results.

This study demonstrates that Nandong Smong participatory drama approach can effectively enhance tsunami disaster resilience among Acehnese high school students. By engaging learners in the collective creation and performance of drama grounded in local wisdom, students developed deeper and more meaningful understanding of the cultural concept of the ‘Smong’. They were not only able to explain its significance but also to clearly articulate appropriate actions to take during a tsunami threat. This indicates that drama-based learning serves as a powerful medium for cultivating practical preparedness skills that students can apply in everyday life.

The findings further show that participatory drama fosters more than just cognitive learning. It enables learners to identify early warning signs, build confidence and strengthen their capacity for coordinated response. While the intervention is rooted in culturally familiar narratives and expressions, it promotes learning that is contextually relevant, emotionally resonant and sustainable. Such culturally anchored approaches align closely with the study’s objective of developing disaster education models that effectively strengthen resilience in tsunami-prone settings.

Overall, this research confirms that Nandong Smong is not only a valuable cultural heritage but also a potent educational tool for shaping disaster-resilient youth. Integrating local wisdom with participatory pedagogies has demonstrated significant potential in nurturing resilience that is enduring and embedded in students’ understanding, attitudes and behaviours (Winkens, Lemke & Leicht-Scholten 2024). These results underscore the promise of replicating similar culturally grounded disaster education initiatives in other coastal communities that possess their own local disaster narratives.