Goal
Students learn to distinguish the fundamental ways in which societies respond and adjust to hazards. Throughout these activities, students maintain a critical awareness of the fact that, like hazard perceptions, responses are influenced by socioeconomic, cultural, personal, and environmental factors. Students also learn to appreciate the complexities, difficulties, and ethical aspects involved in reducing the impacts of hazards on society and the environment.

Learning Outcomes
After completing the activities associated with this unit, students should:

• be aware that hazard mitigation requires group effort for solutions that benefit the greatest number of people;
• know the phases of hazard management and their overlapping, circular nature;
• recognize the randomness and uncertainty associated with many hazards;
• have a sense for the complexity of their environment and the ways that things interact to lessen or worsen hazards;
• identify and assess physical, ecological, and socioeconomic vulnerabilities to accelerated sea level rise and evaluate options to adjust to it;
• understand that no mitigation solution is universal and that solutions often need to be tailored to fit a certain location (e.g., developed world vs. underdeveloped);
• understand that nature writing may serve as a record of people’s perceptions of and values regarding interactions between humans and the natural environment;
• construct support for their assertions about what constitutes a "natural" place and change; and
• have become aware of some of their own ethics regarding the environment.

Activity 3.1:  Simulation Game of Mitigation Strategies	-- role play for groups of hazard managers
Activity 3.2:  Nature Writing and the Changing Environment	-- writing assignment based on field observations
Activity 3.3:  The Rising Challenge of the Sea	-- assessing vulnerabilities and response capacities to SLR
Activity 3.4:  Reacting to the Rumbles of the Earth	-- comparison of responses to hazards in different cultural geographic contexts

 

Suggested Readings
The following readings accompany the activities for this unit. Choose those readings most appropriate for the activities you select and those most adequate for the skill level of your students.

• Unit 3: How Do Societies Respond and Adjust to Hazards?
• The Background Information of Unit 3 that all students should read.
• Smith, Keith. 1992. Adjustment to hazard: Sharing the loss (Chapter 4) & Adjustment to hazard: Reducing the loss (Chapter 5) in: Environmental hazards: Assessing risk and reducing disaster, 66-100. New York: Routledge.
• Two chapters from a hazards textbook that deal exactly with the major mitigation venues this module proposes: modifying the hazard, reducing people’s vulnerability to it, and sharing the losses. A clear, concise read that repeats, extends, and puts a slightly different twist on the issues raised in the Background Information.
• Mitchell, James. 1995. Coping with natural hazards and disasters in megacities: Perspectives on the twenty-first century. GeoJournal 37, 3; 303-311.
• The introductory article to this special issue of GeoJournal on hazards in megacities lays out why hazards research and hazard management efforts should increasingly focus on urban environments, especially very large cities. It also calls for an integration of hazard management efforts with sustainable urban development, thus illustrating how the creation of hazards and their mitigation are just the two sides of the same coin. A good article to pull the units of this module together.

Goal
Students learn that many factors contribute to the exacerbation of hazards. They also learn that there are opportunities throughout the hazard event (before, during, and after) to make adjustments. Students can make comparisons between the fictitious scenario and the hazards their neighborhood might face.

Skills

• role identification and play
• team work (respectful discussion, cooperation, responsible task completion and integration)
• handling of complex information

• Student Worksheet 3.1
• Supporting Material 3.1
• Six-sided dice

Tasks
The simulation game of mitigation strategies is designed to engage students in the various phases of the disaster response and mitigation process and to demonstrate to them the randomness and uncertainty associated with many hazard events. Both natural and technological hazards are represented. With the role of the dice, students will be confronted by a specific hazard event. Together in small groups, students work to prepare a management plan in which they consider how to (1) prepare for the hazard, (2) respond to it, (3) recover from it, and (4) mitigate its effects. Students then briefly present their management plan to the rest of the class.

The simulation activity can be structured into the three parts listed below. A detailed explanation of each part follows the outline.

Part 1. Pre-game structure and set-up                        Part 3. Solutions
    1.1 Establish team groups                                                  3.1 Team presentations of strategies
    1.2 Describe scenario                                                        3.2 Open class discussion
    1.3 Assign roles

Part 2. The Simulation
    2.1 Determine hazard
    2.2 Determine management phase
    2.3 Choose secondary hazards

 
PART 1
1.1 Establish team groups

Depending on the size of your class, you can choose from a variety of options regarding team composition, scenario choice, type of hazard, and hazard management phase as to how to design this activity (many configurations are possible, and some configurations are provided below).

Supporting Material 3.1 contains two scenarios that you can use to provide the context in which the hazard event will occur. Scenario 1 is a developed world/US example; scenario 2 describes a comparable developing world situation from Ecuador. Suggest to students that they draw a sketch of the landscape that each scenario describes to help them visualize the situation they will be asked to manage.

It may be helpful for students to assign themselves roles within their group to provoke different viewpoints and solutions to the hazard they will face. One student may choose to work as the Emergency Planner, another as the Mayor, a fire chief, the police chief, and citizen leader, and so forth. The team should be reminded to integrate everyone’s ideas into the final management strategy that they present to the class.

PART 2
2.1 Determine the hazard

The hazard that the group will consider is determined by the roll of a die for a total of six possible hazards situations. The following rolls are suggested:

1 = earthquake
2 = flood
3 = hurricane
4 = radiation accident
5 = chemical spill
6 = dam failure
 
You may select the hazard for the groups, or if each group is working on separate hazards, the groups themselves can roll for their fate. Following hazard selection, the instructor may also choose to roll again to determine the magnitude or intensity of the event. The following rolls are suggested:
 

For an earthquake	1 = 7.0 on the Richter scale	For a radiation accident	1 = core meltdown (Chernobyl-like)
	2 = 5.0, etc.	(Note: no scaling implied!)	2 = fire in the reactor
			3 = leak into water cooling system and release from plant
For a flood	1, 2 = a 500-year event (worst ever seen)		4 = minor leak into air
	3, 4 = a 100-year event, etc.		5 = nuclear waste transportation accident
	5, 6 = flooding in selected locations		6 = accident at storage facility
For a hurricane	1 = category 5 on Saffir-Simpson scale	For a chemical spill	1 = >10,000 gallons spilled
	2 = category 4, etc.		2 = 5,000 - 10,000 gallons spilled, etc.
For a dam failure	1 = rapid collapse, massive water release
	2 = rapid collapse from smaller dam/reservoir, etc.

Lower intensity rolls are still worthwhile. A small seismic event still gets the group thinking about what could happen in the future and how they would prepare for a larger event.

Once students know their hazard and its magnitude, get their teamwork started by asking them to consider the following questions during their discussions:

In this part of the simulation, students begin to prepare their management plan. The group as a whole may work in all phases, or each group can be assigned a different phase and work on the same event. Solutions can then be discussed to create an overall mitigation strategy.

Students should address the following phases in their management plan:
 

Preparedness	knowing warning signs and what to do during an emergency
Response	taking appropriate actions in an emergency that protect you from harm
Recovery	taking actions after an emergency to return to your normal life and to make yourself safer
Mitigation	preventing disasters or taking actions that lessen the harmful effects of unavoidable disasters

Effort should be made to emphasize cyclical nature and interrelatedness of all management phases.

After allowing teams to work on solutions to their hazards, the instructor may want to stop the simulation and add another dimension to the situation. Many hazards will trigger other hazards that further complicate the situation, such as a tsunami from an earthquake (see the latter part of Supporting Material 3.1, which is a figure of one hazard triggering an array of secondary ones; this figure may help students to think through the consequences of hazards.)

The secondary hazard will be determined through the roll of the die. The following rolls are suggested:
 

For an earthquake	1 = radiation leak, compromise at nuclear facility	For a radiation accident	1 = unprecedented numbers of road accidents
	2 = dam failure		2 = looting
	3 = fires		3 = large wild fire
	4 = landslides		4 = blizzard
	5 = tsunami		5 = major railroad crash
	6 = nothing		6 = nothing
For a flood	1 = disease outbreak	For a chemical spill	1 = flood
	2 = chemical spill		2 = massive landslide
	3 = dam failure		3 = disease outbreak
	4 = transportation cut		4 = large fire at site of spill
	5 = radiation leak		5 = severe thunderstorms
	6 = nothing		6 = nothing
For a hurricane	1 = chemical spill	For a dam failure	1 = contamination of drinking water
	2 = transportation cut		2 = transportation out
	3 = oil tanker accident		3 = infectious disease outbreak
	4 = infectious disease outbreak		4 = chemical spill
	5 = dam failure		5 = urban riots
	6 = nothing		6 = nothing

Introducing a secondary hazard will demonstrate the complexity involved in managing hazardous situations. It is also possible for students to see how a hazard of a local nature can spread to involve others (e.g., uncontained chemical spill in one neighborhood that enters a river and affects people downstream). Students should be cautioned that these are just examples and that other compound hazards are possible, including nothing happening.

Each team presents their management plan for dealing with their particular hazard. In this plan, each team should address the questions that you asked them to consider (see above) and the appropriate management phases. Ask students also to report on the difficulties they had, if any. For example, did they need more information? Presentations should be brief and will likely move quickly into the open class discussion.

The class discussion will most likely evolve naturally out of the presentations by the different teams. You may structure it around the following questions:

Activity 3.2  Nature Writing and the Changing Environment

Goal
Students learn that nature writing may help illuminate a culture’s way of living with environmental change. Students also learn that the naturalness of ecological communities can never be assumed without investigating human history. Students are asked to explore and respond not only to the natural world but also to environmental changes.

Skills

• critical and analytic thinking
• creating a personal expression of their own perceptions and values of the natural world
• coupling observation with explanation through the formulation of geographic questions, research and analysis

• Student Worksheet 3.2
• Supporting Material 3.2
• Map of local area

Tasks
Brainstorm with the entire class (or in smaller groups if the class is large) to create a list of natural places that students visit or experience on a daily basis. These places might include local city or state parks, backyards, atriums, groves of trees through which students walk, arboretums, botanical gardens, the school grounds, greenbelts, fields, open lots, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, etc. Write the suggestions on the board or on an overhead transparency.

Next, begin to ask questions of the students with reference to the list. For example:

• Where are these places? (locate on local map as a class or in individual groups)
• Are they geographically related? How? Is their a discernible pattern?
• Since when have these sites been considered "natural?"
• Has their "naturalness" changed over time? To what extent? How? Why?
• If the places changed over time, what changed them? Were the agents of change "natural" or of a different origin?
• If a hazard or global change altered these places, would it still be "natural" and would you still like it as much?
• Who decided they were "natural" places? Are all the places equally "natural?" Why or why not?
• Are all students in agreement?
• How often do students visit these places? How much time do they spend in these places when they do visit? Do they wish they could spend more time in these places? Why or why not and how come?
• Is there a general abundance or lack of places considered "natural?"

At this point, introduce the idea of nature writing as a cultural expression of values and perceptions of the natural environment. Survey the list of nature writers (provided in Supporting Materials 3.2) and bibliographic sources before class so you can select and distribute a few passages for discussion.

Use this as a lead into the nature writing assignment. Students should be asked to select a natural place from the list they created in class and write a piece on the selected place that would fall into the genre of nature writing. Allow different formats, like poetry, descriptions, of more philosophical reflections that weave together personal observation, background information of the place that they find, and deliberation of their values. To do so, recommend that students spend some time at the site about which they would like to write.

Decide upon the paper length given class size and other writing assignments that the class will do over the course of this semester.

BACK

Activity 3.3  The Rising Challenge of the Sea

Goal
Through the use of the Common Methodology procedure developed by the Coastal Zone Management Subgroup (CZMS) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), students perform a comprehensive assessment of a site’s vulnerability to accelerated sea level rise (ASLR). In addition, students get a glimpse into the concerns and needs of coastal areas to address the challenges of a rise in global sea level in the future.

Skills

• critical text comprehension
• data acquisition
• self-searching reflection about issues of control over environmental problems

• Student Worksheet 3.3
• Supporting Material 3.3
• Background reading: CZMS. 1992. Global climate change and the rising challenge of the sea. Report of the Coastal Zone Management Subgroup of the Response Strategies Working Group of the IPCC; Supporting document for the IPCC update report 1992. Washington, DC: NOAA.

Request from:
Lynne Mersfelder
NOAA/NGS International Affairs Office
1825 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 613
Washington, DC 20009
Allow sufficient time to obtain this report!

The activity begins with this latter issue in the form of a general question and answer session about what physiologists call "locus of control." Use the list of statements in Supporting Material 3.3 (copy for your students as hand-outs) which is derived from an article by Smith-Sebesto on locus of control in the Journal of Environmental Education. Assess and prompt students to identify their own locus of control. In other words, ask students if they think they have any power to do anything that might have an effect on the outcome of an issue. Provide examples or cases with ascending degrees of "globalness" on which they might respond with a "yes" or a "no." For example, ask questions like "Do you think you could lower your utility bill?", "Do you think you could organize a community litter pick up?", "Would it make a difference?", "Do you believe you have the power to affect how a place responds to a rise in sea level?"

At this point, explore with your students the issue of accelerated sea level rise (ASLR). A presentation of facts and figures would be appropriate. Introduce the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its subgroups, including the Coastal Zone Management Subgroup (CZMS). Discuss the IPCC’s latest report. If you need additional information on the IPCC or its reports, consult either their publications or the excerpts from and executive summaries of the reports available on the IPCC Homepage at the following address: http://www.unep.ch/ipcc/ipcc-0.html. Topics to discuss here might include: the consensus status of the group, its credentials, its role in global politics, and its strategies for improving the assessments of vulnerability to environmental change. Round out the discussion with the idea that these are individuals acting in response to global issues. Speculate on the group’s locus of control.

Then assign students or groups of students to one of the case studies contained in the IPCC’s 1992 report supplement from the CZMS. Have students complete an assessment report for their country, based on the attached outline (Vulnerability Assessment Report and Guide to Vulnerability Assessment Report attached to the Student Worksheet). Students may find data within that report, from the Internet, and in libraries (statistical yearbooks, country reports, geography books about these countries, etc.). Students should be aware of the purpose of the CZMS document "to describe and analyze ongoing activities for assessing vulnerability to sea level rise and formulating potential adaptive response strategies." This part of the activity is designed to give students an overview of the issues surrounding a possible rise in sea level.

When students return with their various vulnerability assessment reports (you may ask them to write up their results or simply bring in the Vulnerability Assessment Report sheet), go back to one of the original questions posed in the beginning of the activity: "Do you believe you have the power to affect how a place responds to a rise in sea level?" Ask them to put themselves into the position of someone living in a coastal community in the country they investigated. Thus, students are asked to connect questions about locus of control (a person’s belief system) with a critical assessment of the factors that determine a country’s or community’s vulnerability to sea level rise. Conclude the in-class discussion by pointing to the importance of these human dimensions (belief systems and those that affect vulnerability) when looking at the impacts of global (climate) change.

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Activity 3.4  Reacting to the Rumbles of the Earth

Goal
Students focus on the human responses to different hazards in different cultural and geographic contexts, compare these responses, and use them as a basis for an empathetic letter to the editor assessing these responses.

Skills

• critically assessing and comparing human responses to hazards
• working individually, in pairs, and in groups
• empathizing and relating to others in different cultural contexts
• writing an op-ed or letter to the editor

• Student Worksheet 3.4
• Access to a library with newspapers, weekly news magazines, scientific journals

Tasks

Part I
In this activity, students investigate the responses to various hazards in different cultural and geographic contexts using reports on hazard events over the past year in newspapers, magazines, and/or scientific articles. Journals like Environment and The Ecologist are good sources because they are published frequently enough to be quite up-to-date, and are scientific, yet written in an accessible way, often emphasizing in their articles the human face of environmental issues.

Before you assign students this activity, divide the class into groups of 4 or 5 and give each group one type of hazard to focus on. Make sure to include a range of hazards, preferably some you know have occurred in culturally different locations (e.g., in the US and in Asia, in Africa and Europe, or in East and West European countries, etc). Earthquakes, floods, toxic materials or oil spills, possible volcanic eruptions, tropical cyclones (hurricane, typhoon), infectious diseases, or droughts are good suggestions for this activity as they are common throughout the world. To make things even clearer you may tell students which events to search for (i.e., if you know the dates of when they happened). Ask students to look for articles on this one type of hazard or on the two specific events of this particular type that you have singled out in two different locations. Encourage them also to check international newspapers, especially from the country in which the event occurred as they might better reflect the cultural influence on people’s responses.

When students return with their news reports to the next class session, ask them to get together in their groups and share their findings with each other. The Student Worksheet contains a table that will help them organize the information and structure their analysis of these reports. Ask them to use that table as a guide along with the following questions:

For each location:

• Are there differences in the responses between poor vs. rich people?
• Are there differences in the responses between male vs. female inhabitants?
• Are there differences in the responses between people of different ethnic origin?
• Are there differences in the responses with regard to different levels of education?
• Are there differences in the response with regard to distance to the hazard?

• Are there differences in the responses attributable to cultural differences?
• Are there differences in the responses attributable to socioeconomic and technological ability?
• Are there any responses that strike you as surprising or extraordinary? etc.

Part II
Ask students individually to write an op-ed piece or a letter to the editor of a newspaper in either one of the two locations they studied. Tell them they are writing this letter from the perspective of a victim in one event (as if it had happened to them ...) but with (newspaper) knowledge of the other. For example, if they focused on the Northridge and Kobe earthquakes, a student may write as a Kobe resident to the Northridge newspaper relating his/her experiences to an audience that went through a similar hazardous event but whose responses may have been curiously different. Students should feel free to make up how they "personally" were affected by the event. Thus students get to summarize the information they collected in the comparison table and at the same time "put themselves in the shoes" of victims and of people in different cultural and geographic contexts. The op-ed letter should be no longer than two pages, and students should hand in the completed table along with the paper.

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