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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Notes from our reviewers

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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)
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.
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.
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).