Unit 3:  How Do Societies Respond and Adjust to Environmental Hazards?                 Answers to Activities

 
 
 

Activity 3.1  Simulation Game of Mitigation Strategies

The answers to this activity will depend on the scenario, hazard, severity, and secondary hazard, and of course, the students’ ingenuity in finding solutions. Use the criteria below to evaluate their outcomes.

• How did students work together as a team? Were students cooperative, inclusive, and respectful?
• Did students consider all management phases?
• Were students realistic about what they proposed as solutions? A difficult issue to evaluate as "realistic" may to some mean "what we’ve always done." Students should not feel restricted to a minimal options-perspectives, but demonstrate awareness that certain solutions are simply not feasible, if not outright nonsensical, e.g., to move everyone out of Metropolis.
• Did students take the given scenario sufficiently into account (e.g., massive clean-up machinery may not be feasible in mountainous Ecuador)?
• Did students assess the dangers of the different hazards adequately and address each in their response strategies? For example, if students dealt with hurricanes, did they address high winds, severe downpours, flooding, the possibility of thunderstorms and tornadoes, and the storm surge?
• Did students realize, and struggle with, the complexities of the hazard management process?
• Are students able to transfer what they’ve done in the activity to their own community or neighborhood?

 
 

Activity 3.2  Nature Writing and the Changing Environment

 
What and how students write for this assignment depends on the site they select, the observations they make, the background information sources they find and include, and the form in which they choose to relate their reflections on the site. Use the criteria below to assess their papers. See Notes on Active Pedagogy for additional suggestions on evaluating students’ written work.

• Did the students provide a detailed and colorful account of the site?
• Is the research on the human and natural history of the site thorough?
• Is the reflection on personal responses to and ethics about the site critical, self-aware, and literarily supported?
• Is the paper well structured and creative?

 
 

Activity 3.3  The Rising Challenge of the Sea

In the discussion and students’ vulnerability reports look for the following:

• a clear effort to collect data from a variety of sources;
• a fairly coherent picture of the vulnerability of their chosen country from the data collected;
• a conscious reflection on their personal beliefs about the locus of control; and
• an awareness for the complexity of factors affecting a country’s vulnerability and capacity; to respond to ASLR.

If you ask students to write up the results from the vulnerability assessment, also assess the clarity, construction, creativity, and technical appropriateness of their papers. See Notes on Active Pedagogy for additional suggestions on evaluating students’ written work.
 
 
 

Activity 3.4  Reacting to the Rumbles of the Earth

 
The specific answers to this activity depend on the hazards people focus on, which events they compare, and what sources they find. Some of the commonalities students might find include the following:

• impacted populations often develop a strong sense of community in the wake of a disaster (more than they typically do under non-disaster circumstances); this may be more pronounced or obvious in developed nations or in urban areas because a sense of community is still more commonplace in rural societies;
• people commonly react with more blame to technological disasters and with more helplessness or acceptance of natural disasters;
• communities/nations that are more socioeconomically and technologically developed often mobilize more quickly and efficiently; they are also more likely to decide on some large-scale, expensive, structural adjustments to hazards than poorer communities/nations;
• there may be differences in whether people feel that they can change their fate, limit future impacts, and/or lessen their vulnerability based on cultural and educational influences;
• the effectiveness of responses may differ with the presence or absence of guides, managers, and other people "in charge";
• the types of responses and personal engagement with the hazard change with the distance from the hazard (from helping in the rescue and clean-up to sending donations of money and in kind, etc.);
• a surprising response to a US observer (although not, for example, to a Taiwanese observer) would be if injured disaster victims were taken to a religious leader instead of a doctor or hospital.