Realizing the character of environmental care through the use of interactive e-comics based on natural disaster mitigation (KOMINA)

Abstract

Environmental damage has triggered various natural disasters and has now become a serious global concern. To address this, it’s important to build environmental awareness from an early stage. One way to do this is through disaster mitigation-based e-comics (KOMINA), which are designed to be interactive and contextual. KOMINA presents natural phenomena in an engaging way and includes real-life examples that help learners connect the content to their everyday lives. The purpose of this study was to determine the significant effect of natural disaster mitigation e-comics on students’ environmental awareness attitudes. This study used a quasi-experimental method with a post-test only control group design. The research was carried out at the Laboratory Elementary School at the State University of Malang, involving a total of 61 fifth-grade students from two parallel classes. Class VA, consisting of 30 students, served as the experimental group, while class VB, consisting of 31 students, served as the control group. The questionnaire given at the end of the learning process served as a research instrument to obtain the final data. Data were analyzed using inferential statistics with a t-test. The t-test results served significance value of 0.000 ≤ 0.05, indicating a significant difference between the two groups. The average post-test score of the experimental class was 84.5, while the control class scored 74.5. These findings highlight the important role of disaster mitigation e-comics in fostering students’ environmental awareness and caring attitudes. Through KOMINA, students are encouraged to actively engage with natural phenomena presented in the e-comics, making the learning process more meaningful and impactful..