Teachers may utilise this question as a form of pre assessment of student knowledge and understanding. This same method can then be reapplied as a post assessment.
Before you start - think about what you know now - how might you answer this question.
Imagine you held a meeting in your street about preparing for bush fire. What could you say to your neighbours?
You can use the ripple chart to brainstorm your prior knowledge Ripple Chart - Put the question in the middle ring and then fill in the 4 large sections with the first layer of answers. Then off those, come up with 3 related ideas.
ST3-10ES-S - explains regular events in the solar system and geological events on the Earth’s surface
EN3-1A - communicates effectively for a variety of audiences and purposes using increasingly challenging topics, ideas, issues and language forms and features
EN3-3A - uses an integrated range of skills, strategies and knowledge to read, view and comprehend a wide range of texts in different media and technologies
EN3-7C - thinks imaginatively, creatively, interpretively and critically about information and ideas and identifies connections between texts when responding to and composing texts
In this research phase of the program, give your students access to a wealth of resources that allow them to investigate the Key Inquiry Questions:
- How do individuals and communities prepare for bush fires?
- How do communities and authorities prevent bush fires?
- How are bush fires responded to?
- How do individuals and communities recover from bush fires?
You might want to choose resources that have particular relevance to your school and its location, or that you feel will most appeal to particular types of students.
- Jigsaw
- Cause and effect chart for collecting info
- KWL CHART
Encourage students to explore how people living in bush fire prone areas prepare their properties and create plans for leaving early or staying and defending – and how the authorities predict and warn about bush fires and prepare for them themselves. Ask your students:
- Who prepares?
- What actions are carried out?
- How do individual and community level actions vary?
- How can bush fires be predicted?
FACTSHEETS:
WEBSITE:
- interactive website which guides you through the process of making a bush fire survival plan.
MAPS:
VIDEOS:
AUDIO:
- Radio ad: 'exit strategy' (mp3)
- Radio ad: 'family' (mp3)
- Radio ad: 'indigenous' (mp3)
EVENTS:
Introduce students to the ways that we prevent fires and their spread through methods such as creating natural barriers, building containment lines, and implementing hazard reduction burns. Ask your pupils:
- Who does all the work and why?
- What has been proven to work? What hasn't?
- Have they had personal experience of these methods?
- What negative impacts do any of these actions have?
FACTSHEETS:
- Establishing Asset Protection Zones (PDF)
VIDEOS:
- Backburning on Behind The News (YouTube)
Get your students excited about the high-tech hardware used to fight fires including specialist vehicles, aircraft and equipment – and have them investigate the way the NSW Rural Fire Service plans for fires and manages the deployment of its people. Ask your pupils:
- Do they know anyone who drives or operates firefighting equipment?
- What would be the best and worst things about doing so?
- Which types of equipment are the most effective?
- How do individuals and communities respond?
FACTSHEETS:
- Leaving early (PDF)
- Staying and defending (PDF)
- Neighbourhood Safer Places (PDF)
- Assistance for elderly and disabled (PDF)
DOCUMENTS:
- How to become a firefighter cadet (PDF)
- Information about fire trails (PDF)
MAPS:
VIDEOS:
- "We were up against it." (Bodycam footage)
- Water dumping helicopter (USA) (YouTube)
- Erickson Aircrane in action (YouTube)
- Children huddled under a bridge (ABC)
Start the discussion about the impacts bush fires can have on individuals, businesses and whole communities, and explore how people have succeeded in overcoming those impacts – or not. Ask your pupils:
- What's the worst that could happen?
- How long does it take to recover?
- Does money solve all the problems?
- Why would people live in these areas in the first place?
FACTSHEETS:
- Emotional support for firefighters (PDF)
DOCUMENTS:
WEBSITES
- The human face of the Black Saturday fires
- Recovery from bush fire (ABC) AUDIO
- Radio National - child psychology after a bush fire (ABC)
Expose your students to greater depth of information through videos documenting bush fires that have had significant impacts.
- Blue Mountains footage and statistics (YouTube)
- NSW RFS firefighter's video (YouTube)
- Bodycam footage (YouTube)
For those fires you've chosen to study, ask your pupils:
- What have they learnt about the community involved?
- How great was the risk and what was the fire danger rating at the time?
- How did the fire unfold and could its spread have been prevented?
- What happened next, and through to the fire's extinction?
- What resources were deployed to tackle the fires – people and equipment?
- What were the final impacts on people, the place, and the environment?
Build knowledge and understanding with lessons here:
- Properties of materials - not fire - A lesson about materials (flammable etc. would be good here. This is just an example)
- Aboriginal Land Clearing Processes An example of a good link to Aboriginal perspectives
- Possibly Australian plant adaptations lesson
An empathy map is a collaborative tool your students can use to gain a deeper insight into how people think, act, feel and see in a given situation – in this case, before during and/or after a bush fire. It can represent an individual, or a group of people such as a family or a whole community.
Visualising attitudes and behaviours in this way will help your students explore the feelings, responses and challenges of people during a time of natural disaster.
Worksheet: Empathy Mapping
A helpful resource that provides the framework for creating an empathy map.