Teaching practices around natural hazards and community resilience in Colorado

Abstract

Increasing extreme weather events in a warming world fuel the need for citizens to understand natural hazards and improve community resilience. We especially need to prepare students for these challenges and increase their understanding of hazard resilience. A teacher needs assessment survey was conducted to identify current teaching practices around natural hazards and community resilience, as well as the needs teachers have with respect to training and educational resources on these topics. Using an intentional sampling strategy of school districts in rural and urban communities across Colorado, we surveyed 279 teachers from all disciplines. Almost 70% of teacher survey respondents currently teach about natural hazards, while only about 30% address community resilience. The most common reasons for not teaching about natural hazards or community resilience included a lack of alignment to the subject they are teaching, the absence of these topics in the standards/curriculum, a lack of time, or a lack of personal background knowledge. Teaching practices included lectures, field trips, and class discussions which focused on the science of natural hazards, social aspects (preparedness and impacts), and using current or past events. Science teachers are the most likely to teach about natural hazards and urban teachers are more likely to teach about both hazards and community resilience. Awareness of relevant educational resources was associated with a higher rate of teachers addressing community resilience. Results imply teachers’ need for effective and place-conscious educational resources in order to build more resilience in students and thus help communities prepare for natural hazards.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2021.1964319

Keywords:

• Teacher needs assessment
• natural hazards
• resilience
• Colorado

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge others who gave feedback and supported this work, including Erin Leckey, Katya Schloesser, Christine Okochi, Amanda Morton, and Jennifer Taylor. We would also like to acknowledge the help we received from district content coordinators, curriculum directors, principals, and other administrative staff who helped us increase the reach of this survey. Finally, we want to thank the reviewers and editors who gave comments and suggestions on this paper and helped to strengthen it.

Disclosure statement

Kathryn Boyd, Anne Gold, and Megan Littrell declare that they have no conflict of interest in this work.

Human rights statements and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association under Grant Award number NA18SEC0080007. Part of the work was supported by the NOAA Cooperative Agreement with CIRES, NA17OAR4320101.