Teacher guide to lesson 2

Learning intentions

  • KNOW: The different types of natural hazards.
  • UNDERSTAND: How local hazards can impact a community.
  • DO: Identify which hazards are most likely to occur in the local area using maps to determine which locations could be impacted.

Success criteria

I can: Identify a local hazard and the impacts on my community.

Lesson time: 60 minutes.

Extreme weather events such as storms, floods and bushfires can be dangerous and pose a risk to people and property.

Recognising local hazards is the first step to becoming disaster resilient.

Extreme weather includes unexpected, unusual, unpredictable, severe or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Often, extreme events are based on a location’s recorded weather history. In recent years, some extreme weather events have been attributed to human-induced global warming, with studies indicating an increasing threat from extreme weather in the future.

Supporting resources

Vocabulary and concepts cards: Use this list to develop students understanding of key concepts and vocabulary in this lesson.

Climate extremes

1
Local hazards

Consider the impacts of a natural hazard on the social, economic, structural/infrastructure, cultural, physical, health, ecological and geographic aspect of your community. This is a think-pair-share activity exploring global and local natural hazards and the impacts on people. Students use the quiz section and then as a class or in groups think-pair-share.

Think-pair-share:

  1. List as many natural hazards as you can. Possible answers: flood, storm, bushfire, tsunami, landslide, earthquake, cyclone, tornado, hurricane, heatwave, drought, snow storm, avalanche and/or volcano.
  1. Identify the hazards that are most likely to occur in your local area. Possible answers: The most common natural hazards in Victoria are floods, storms and bushfires. Other answers could also be landslide, earthquake, heatwave and tsunami.
  1. Describe the impacts that these hazards can have on people and property in your community.
    Possible answers: loss of life, injury to people and animals, property damage and destruction. Homelessness, loss of business, trauma and stress, poverty, destruction of roads, no power, no food, health issues from sewage getting into drinking water, being isolated and cut off, pets are lost or die, natural assets like our World Heritage areas are destroyed, bridges are destroyed, insurance premiums will go up.

2
VIC Emergency Maps

Students use a digital map tool to assess the level of potential hazard exposure of their community, home/property and school and answer questions in a short quiz.

Choose bushfire or flood depending on your interest or the hazard most likely to impact your area.

Bushfire

1. Go to emergency.vic.gov.au

2. Click on ‘Prepare and Get Ready’

3. Select Map

4. Type your school or home address into the search bar

5. Click on Filter. In the drop down menu, select ‘Bushfire History – 50 years’

Quiz questions:

  1. Has there been a bushfire in your area in the past 50 years?
  2. What year did it happen?
  3. How close did it come to your school or house?
  4. Could there be a bushfire in your area in the future?

Flood

1. Go to emergency.vic.gov.au

2. Click on ‘Prepare and Get Ready’

3. Select Map

4. Type your school or home address into the search bar

5. Click on Filter. In the drop down menu, select ‘Flood likelihood – 100 years’

Quiz questions:

  1. Is there a flood risk in your area?
  2. How close could a flood impact your school or house?
  3. Could there be a flood in your area in the future?

3
Optional activity

Community Emergency Risk Assessment (CERA) is an all hazards risk assessment tool which aims to identify, mitigate and reduce risk within the community following the Australian Standard for risk management, ISO 31000.

Click here to go to CERA

4
Homework activity - record a local story

We can learn a lot about the history of disasters in our area by talking to friends, neighbours and relatives.

For homework the students are to interview a family member or neighbour about a local hazard event or disaster and write an overview about the event using a template worksheet. They will need to find out information about disaster history such as the where, when, what, who, how and why of the incident.

Homework activity Disaster Survival Story template.

5
Revisit learning intentions

Recap on the lesson with reference to the identified local hazards and the impacts on your local community from activity one of this lesson. The lesson learning intentions:

  • KNOW: The different types of natural hazards.
  • UNDERSTAND: How local hazards can impact a community.
  • DO: Identify which hazards are most likely to occur in the local area using maps to determine which locations could be impacted.

6
Exit pass

What type of natural hazard could impact our school?