5. Taking action

Making a household emergency plan is one of the most important things you can do to increase your disaster resilience. Ask students to reflect on their homework activity and invite who had a chance to do this activity to share their experience in discussing an emergency plan with their family.

• Did you have a go at writing an emergency plan with your family?
• What do you think is the most important part of your plan?
• Do you think writing a plan has increased your households disaster resilience? How?

Direct the class into a discussion about why is it important to have an emergency plan and how it can increase their disaster resilience.

Here are some examples of how children and youth are agents of change. They have contributed to disaster risk reduction in their community. View one of these two disaster resilience projects undertaken by students and respond to the questions in the quiz.

Strathewen Primary School – ‘Survive and Thrive’ is a Victorian students claymation video made by the students of Strathewen Primary School, and is aimed at children and adults living in bushfire prone areas.

Floodscapes – ‘Pet Wise’ is from Invermay Primary School, meenah neenah Aboriginal Cultural Education Program and Launceston Big Picture School animation video project with flood footage, giving tips and advice for people living in flood prone areas on how to prepare pets for evacuation.

Quiz questions:

1. What is the purpose of the video? Possible answer: telling people to be prepared, to keep people safe, to make people aware of local hazards, encourage people to get ready before it happens, a bushfire is dangerous, how to keep pets safe in a flood, that a flood is dangerous.

2. Who is the target audience? Possible answers: pet owners, people living in a bushfire prone areas, people in flood hazard areas.

3. What are the key messages in the video? Possible answers: fire danger signals, what to do in a bushfire, what people should do to be safe, what to do to get ready before it happens, what to include in an emergency plan, what to include in an emergency kit, where to find emergency information.

Here is the chance for students to create a project to increase awareness of hazards in their community. Time is limited to carry out project idea to completion, however this could be carried on as a class project after you all complete the DRET unit. The class may consider presenting their project ideas to a school assembly.

Students can record their ideas on the project plan template.

Students think-pair-share their project idea that could raise disaster resilience in the local community or school.

• Encourage students to share their project idea.
• Have a class discussion and vote on the project idea that might have the most impact in their community.
• Is there anything else you all can do as class to make your school and community more aware of the local hazards?

Students repeat the disaster resilience quiz from lesson 1. When completed encourage your students to compare their own answers from lesson 1 to lesson 5 and reflect on changes in their disaster knowledge and levels of preparedness.

Ask them:

• Are there any changes or differences in your answers?
• Do you think your disaster knowledge and levels of preparedness have increased?

Bushfire quiz

1. Has a bushfire ever happened in your area? If yes, provide some more information about it.
2. Describe some of the things you would do to prepare for a bushfire.
3. Describe some things you would need to consider as part of your family’s emergency bushfire survival plan.
4. What kinds of things do you think you should have in your family’s bushfire emergency kit?
5. If there was a bushfire in your area, what would you do to be safe?
6. How will you know if there is a bushfire threatening your local area?
7. How can young people your age help the community to become more resilient to bushfire hazards and disasters?

Storm quiz

1. Has a storm ever happened in your area? If yes, provide some more information about it.
2. Explain what you need to do to prepare for a storm.
3. Describe some things you would need to consider as part of your family’s emergency storm plan.
4. What kinds of things would you include in your family’s storm emergency kit?
5. If there was a storm in your area, what would you do to be safe?
6. How will you know if there is a storm about to impact your area?
7. How can young people your age help the community to become more resilient to storm hazards and disasters?

Flood quiz

1. Has a flood ever happened in your area? If yes, provide some more information about it.
2. Explain what you need to do to prepare for a flood.
3. Describe some things you would need to consider as part of your family’s emergency flood plan.
4. What kinds of things would you include in your family’s flood emergency kit?
5. If there was a flood in your area, what would you do to be safe?
6. How will you know if there is a flood about to impact your area?
7. How can young people your age help the community to become more resilient to flood hazards and disasters?

Recap on the lesson emphasising that children and young people are agents of change and when given the space and support they can contribute to disaster risk reduction in their community and at home.

The lesson learning intentions:

• KNOW: How young people can help reduce the impacts of a disaster.
• UNDERSTAND: Community action can be effective in increasing disaster resilience.
• DO: Identify community safety activities to influence other people’s preparedness behaviours.

Review the topics and key concepts of the past five lessons that have investigated the hazard risks presented by bushfire, flood and storm to your school and community.

Lesson 1 -What is disaster resilience? Definition of Resilience. Being the capacity of a person to:

• sustain their household under stress,
• adapt to changes in the physical, social and economic environment,
• be self-reliant if external resources are limited or cut off, and
• learn from the experience to be more prepared next time.

Lesson 2 – Our local hazards Definition of a hazard: A danger or a risk. Definition of a natural hazard: A natural hazard is a climatic or geographical event that occurs naturally and causes harm, danger and risk to humans. Definition of an extreme weather event: unexpected, unusual, unpredictable, severe or unseasonal weather.

Lesson 3- Disaster risk and vulnerability A disaster occurs when a community is unable to protect itself from the impact of a hazard event and there is widespread damage to property, loss of life or injuries. Natural hazards such as storms, floods and bushfires don’t inevitably lead to a disaster.  A disaster only occurs when a natural hazard impacts upon a vulnerable community: Natural Hazard + Vulnerable Community = Disaster

Lesson 4- Becoming disaster resilient We all have knowledge and skills that assist us when coping with difficult situations. When combined with the use of available resources, we have the capacity to reduce the impacts of natural hazards. Capacity is a combination of all the strengths, attributes and resources that we can use to prepare, plan and act to protect ourselves from natural hazards and increase disaster resilience.

Lesson 5 –  Taking action Children and youth are agents of change and can be given the space and support to contribute to disaster risk reduction in their community and at home.

What are the characteristics that make you disaster resilient?