Kids Need to Know About Hazards and Disaster Preparedness

These images are from the back cover of Let's Learn to Prevent Disasters! The 24-page activity book, published by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN ISDR), includes easy to follow lessons, word games, drawing activities, fun quizzes and much more. You can download copies for your children, then enjoy working through the lessons with them. For older children, PDC’s Natural Hazards and Vulnerabilities Atlas will provide a challenging and interesting learning opportunity.

This article is actually a list of online resources that will help the children in your family, classroom or neighborhood learn about natural hazards and disaster preparedness. You may want to look through the options on your own and make notes. Some will be sites where you will download files, like the activity book pictured above. Once you've looked at some of the other resources, you may decide to just open the websites, and then put a child in the driver's seat to navigate to the information and online activities that capture her or his imagination.

Most of these resources are made for relatively young children, but you be the judge of what is appropriate for each child. With good computer and reading skills, older children are likely to find that they can learn a great deal from the PDC website. Under the Resources tab, for instance, there are background pages on drought, earthquake, flood, high surf, high wind, hurricane, tsunami, volcano and wildfire. Often, young people will be more interested in learning about something that is “really happening.” By going to PDC’s Natural Hazards and Vulnerabilities Atlas, they can see what is happening all over the world, and navigate to learn what interests them about various hazards and events.

Here, the user of PDC's Atlas has asked for two earthquakes in Japan to be "identified" by selecting the "i" tool and sweeping his cursor over the area of the two icons. The ID box pops up, giving the exact times, magnitudes and locations of the two earthquakes.

The links below are in no particular order. PDC offers no special recommendations about any of these sites. We just want to help you get started exploring.

• FEMA for Kids also has special areas for parents and teachers.
• Another site by FEMA, called Ready, leads little ones to “graduate from Readiness U.”
• NASA for Kids has a lot of interesting pages, and a small section on natural hazards.
• One NASA site has kids in grades 5 to 8 asking “What could a hurricane do to my home?”
• There are education projects for grades K through 12 from NASA, too, and some of about disasters.
• The Observatorium, a NASA project, has teacher’s guides covering space science, aeronautics and “Planet Earth,” an area that includes guides on subjects such as El Niño and Flooding.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) education site has areas marked Primarily for Teachers, Primarily for Students, and Cool Sites for Everyone.
• Sparky the Fire Dog talks mostly about house fires, but he may be the best first teacher for younger children about the bad things that can happen to people, families and communities.
• Another site has Sparky teaching kids up to grade 5, and includes teacher and family resources.
  
• National Geographic for Kids sometimes has a lot of natural hazards information. Check the site map (bottom of the page) or enter keywords like tsunami or hurricane in the search box (top of the page).
• The U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS) has a lot of educational resources for all ages and grade levels, and the site is rich in links to other safe government sites.
• HowToDoThings.com offers “How to Teach Kids About Natural Disaster.” It may, at least, give you some ideas.
• The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN ISDR), besides the activity book mentioned above, also offers Riskland, a downloadable Chutes-and-Ladders type game about natural disaster preparedness.
• UN ISDR also has a compendium of links to educational sites, from 2004, but mostly still active.
• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has a site for its worldwide youth movement. While this is not intended as an educational resource, it may be inspiring for older children and young adults.
• The American Red Cross offers the Masters of Disaster curriculum, including educator materials.
• Another Red Cross site offers lessons on earthquake, fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, wildfire, winter storms and general preparedness. Some items can be downloaded, others are found at Red Cross offices. The materials are described as for “Teachers and Schools” or for “Children Ages 4–11.”
• Discovery (Channel) Education has many lessons plans for various grade levels. Under K–5: Earth Science includes weather maps and volcanoes. Under 6–8: Weather includes hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., and Earth Science includes avalanche, earthquake, flood, tsunami and more. Under 9–12: Ecology includes forest fire, and Earth Science includes two lesson about earthquakes.
• PDC is always glad to help young people learn about natural hazards and disaster preparedness. Some of the Center’s engagements with children and students are described in a fact sheet.

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