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Lake County Cascading Hazards Unit
https://cires.colorado.edu/ceee/resources/lake-county-cascading-hazards-unit

Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation

The unit gives a brief introduction to several natural hazards that impact communities in California; drought, flooding, earthquakes, landslides, and wildfire, and connects the hazards by introducing the concept of cascading hazards.

Learn more about Teaching Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness»


Grade Level

Regional Focus

Online Readiness

Topics

Climate Literacy

This Activity builds on the following concepts of Climate Literacy.

Click a topic below for supporting information, teaching ideas, and sample activities.

Notes From Our Reviewers The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials
Teaching Tips | Science | Pedagogy | Technical Details

Teaching Tips

  • Robust teaching tips are offered including suggestions for supporting students' mental health/anxiety by giving warnings and self-care strategies. There is significant scaffolding support and very helpful short YouTube videos to assist with activities using online resources.
  • The relevant location is specific to northern CA, but could potentially be adapted for other regions (e.g., post-hurricane issues in FL)

About the Content

  • The Cascading Hazard lesson has students connect the climatic drivers and human drivers of these hazards using a concept map, and consider how some drivers can lead to more than one hazard.
  • The unit includes several authentic datasets for students to explore local soil moisture, climatic conditions, and wildfire and flood risk.
  • The unit includes a hands-on investigation with ties to current research being done by project scientists on post-wildfire landslide risk.
  • The unit also includes many local stories from wildfire survivors, art and poetry, trauma-informed practices, and an introduction to the concept of social vulnerability to natural hazards.
  • Passed initial science review - expert science review pending.

About the Pedagogy

  • The unit incorporates several different activities and learning modes, including a visualization activity and poetry interpretation, interaction with geospatial data via StoryMaps, a hands-on lab simulating post-wildfire landslides, and an exercise in taking action to increase resilience.
  • The activities are inquiry based and student driven, and encourage small group work and discussion.
  • The teacher guides for each activity are comprehensive, and include lesson slides, student handouts and handout keys.

Technical Details/Ease of Use

  • The datasets provided are a good opportunity for students to practice accessing and analyzing authentic datasets. Small tutorial videos give students step by step instructions on how to access data.
  • Lesson 2 is multi-part and takes a lot of preparation and materials for the lab/demo activity (including melting paraffin wax).
Entered the Collection: March 2025 | Last Reviewed: January 2025

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