Managing Major Weather Hazards in Recreation

By Heather Martin, Dawson College

At a Glance

Discipline

General

Instructional Level

College & CEGEP

Course

Health and Safety

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

Group
Whole Class

Type of Tasks

Collecting & seeking information
Discussing
Creating & designing
Presenting

Technical Details

Useful Technologies

Phones or similar equipment if video option is chosen

Time

Single class period (< 90 mins)

Instructional Purpose

Application & knowledge building

Overview

In this activity, students create a short performance in response to a prompt given by the teacher about how a group of people (i.e. a camping group or senior centre) would respond to an unexpected weather event (i.e. a snow storm or power failure).

The performance is structured around a newscast format, thus one student plays the interviewer, one the person in charge and the others act out the situation. In their performance students have to integrate all the response steps given by Emergency Preparedness Canada, so that each skit teaches students the guidelines for how to respond to various weather events.

Skits are supposed to be short (1-3 min) and students are given around 20 minutes to prepare; they can then perform in front of the class or video their performance. If this is the case, then all videos will be watched at the beginning of the next class. This activity is not graded, but the content covered will be in the final exam and engagement counts towards the ‘participation’ grade.

Instructional Objectives

Students will be able to:

Explain through a skit the Emergency Preparedness Canada Guidelines
Relate in-class material to the real world
Practice communicating with the press as well as in front of an audience

Workflow & Materials

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow

Contributor's Notes

Benefits

The performance aspect makes students both read the material and try to apply it to a ‘real-world’ scenario;
Students learn where to find material relevant to dealing with weather-related issues by having to look up resources;
Performing and watching the performances/videos makes most students engage and they learn from both enacting the situation and watching others;
It gives students an opportunity to practice speaking in front of others and build their confidence.

Challenges

Students might get a bit out of hand or not engage, especially if one student in the group is particularly resistant;
Students might not take the material very seriously, and do it more for the performance aspect, thus not really integrating the content the instructor would like them to cover.

Tips

It is important that the instructor walks around monitoring students’ work so as to answer questions, be sure that everyone is engaged and provide advice;
The instructor should also ask student to show a first draft/run-through to be sure that they are not putting incorrect information in their performance and ensure that they are covering the most important points;
It is also important to set a strict prep-time to be sure to do everything (either prep+presentations, or prep+video making) in one class.

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Published: 27/11/2018

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