Disasters
My last two weeks of Sustainable Development has had a viewpoint on natural disasters – how they are caused and how they affect humans and our environment. According to the ‘Guide to sanitation in natural disasters WHO(1971) A natural disaster is an act of nature of such magnitude as to create a catastrophic situation in which the day-to-day patterns of life are suddenly disrupted and people are plunged into helplessness and suffering, and, as a result, need food, clothing, shelter, medical and nursing care and other necessities of life, and protection against unfavourable environmental factors and conditions. Natural disasters can come in many forms for example, hurricanes, diseases, floods and tsunamis just to name a few. Disasters is probably the topic in which I know the most about from learning about them in school and also as they happen frequently it is on the news often where they describe the effects and causes of these natural disasters. Through discussion with my peers I discovered they also feel the same and apart from a select few, most of us felt that disasters are the topic we felt most confident about. Throughout these two weeks, I have managed to expand my previous knowledge of natural disasters but also improved many skills I have.
Disasters, in my opinion, is an extremely important topic to teach children about because unlike other sustainable development topics we have studied, disasters have the capability of destroying towns and killing humans in a matter of seconds. Children learning about these disasters gives them the knowledge of what disasters could occur where they live but also give them an insight into how to protect themselves if they are ever in the situation of a natural disaster. There are five different types of natural disasters: geophysical(earthquakes, tsunamis etc.), hydrological(avalanches and floods), climatological(extreme temperatures, droughts and wildfires), meteorological(cyclones and storm/wave surges) and biological(disease epidemics and insect/animal plagues). Each disaster is just as dangerous as another and all have the capability of killing thousands and destroying our environment. One of the worst natural disasters ever recorded happened in Haiti in 2010. A magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on January 12th, 2010 and approximately 3 million people were affected. Around 250 thousand lives were lost, and 300 thousand people were injured(Kathryn Reid, 2018). As Haiti is an underdeveloped, struggling country they are still trying to fix their country but thanks to aid from international agencies and private donors over $16 billion has been allocated to help them(Kathryn Reid, 2018)
We started to learn about all the different types of disasters and what affects they have. Andrew also discussed how to prepare, respond and recover from these disasters and spoke about how we would teach these aspects to children. This led to us being tasked with creating a power point in order for us to practise our teaching to small groups. My group created a power point on hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones which I extremely enjoyed, and it helped me to build up a lot of my personal skills which will help me in the classroom. We also had to include tasks suitable for children in first level and this gave me an insight into what it will be like creating tasks for a classroom. It firstly allowed me to be more digitally literate as I was in charge of creating the power point and although I have used it before, this was the first time I had created such an informative and long power point. This will be extremely handy when in the classroom as now a days almost everything is digital. I also, when presenting, managed to build up my confidence and I noticed that since the last presentation I did I am now much more able to speak in front of people and use a lot more eye contact and gestures when speaking. This is obviously some of the most crucial skills needed for teaching as if I am at ease and confident when teaching the children, it allows them to learn better and as I have good body language the children will feel happy to approach me. According to the GTCS Professional Standards(2006), these skills I learned through the microteaching task relates to 2.1.2 Communicate effectively, using a variety of media, to stimulate pupils and achieve the objectives of lessons. The expected features of this point are:
- Demonstrate that they are able to use appropriate strategies to motivate and sustain the interest of all pupils during a lesson.
- Demonstrate that they can communicate with pupils clearly and offer explanations in a stimulating manner.
- Demonstrate that they can question pupils effectively and respond to their questions and their contributions to discussions.
As for the children, when learning about natural disasters they can research previous disasters. This relates to SCN 1-20a – experiences and outcomes. I have contributed to discussions of current scientific news items to help develop my awareness of science. This will allow them to understand how frequent these disasters happen. Curriculum for Excellence (n.d.)
This blog has shown just how knowledgeable I now am towards the subject and also which crucial teaching skills it has helped me to improve.
This is a resource in which Andrew showed us which would be useful to use in a classroom setting.
This is the powerpoint my group created for the micro teaching task.
Curriculum for Excellence. (n.d.) [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/All-experiencesoutcomes18.pdf[Accessed: 4 November 2019]
GTCS Professional Standards. (2006) Standard for Initial Teacher Education [Online] Available: http://www.gtcs.org.uk/web/FILES/the-standards/the-standard-for-initial-teacher-education.pdf[Accessed: 4 November 2019]
Guide to sanitation in natural disasters WHO. (1971) Guide to sanitation in natural disasters WHO. [Online] Available: https://www.who.int/environmental_health_emergencies/natural_events/en/[Accessed: 1November 2019]
Reid, K. (2018) 2010 Haiti earthquakes: Facts, FAQs, and how to help. [Online] Available: https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2010-haiti-earthquake-facts[Accessed: 3 November 2019]
