Lake County Cascading Hazards Unit
https://cires.colorado.edu/ceee/resources/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.
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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.
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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.
- This resource engages students in using scientific data.
See other data-rich activities
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).