We know that the Sichuan province earthquake destroyed enormous numbers of schools, and that many children died as a result.  Andrew Revkin reported on his blog research being done by Santiago Pujol, an engineer at Purdue focusing on preventing just the kind of destruction that was done to schools in China.  Revkin has an illustration comparing vulnerable and strengthened buildings, and a model of school that would be much safer during an earthquake than many of schools in China.

This is the school building designed by Santiago Pujol/Purdue. A safer school building results when gaps between columns are filled in, as shown above.