I was researching material on the correlation of the weather patterns of 1973/74 and that of 2008/09. That is another subject, but very interesting as you investigate.
I came across a report I thought was interesting while looking at the effects of Cyclone Tracy and cyclone Wanda. Full report can be found at (
http://www.tesag.jcu.edu.au/CDS/Pages/reports/Gou_IWWRpt/06%20old%20and%20new%20b.pdf)
I found these 3 points of interest, especially with regards to the general public when discussing our extreme weather and the dangers they impose.
1/ CHAPTER 5: PERCEPTION, PREPAREDNESS AND WARNING
In a society such as Australian society at present, where technical knowledge is typically vested in the hands of small groups of specialists, adaptation to environmental hazards has two dimensions. To begin with, the technical experts will have a certain level of knowledge both of the hazard itself and also of the nature of technical adjustments available to deal with it.
When one begins the search for information on the flood problem in Brisbane and other areas in the Moreton region, it is obvious that there is a good deal of well-documented knowledge available, but this technical knowledge is often recorded only in confidential files in government departments. At best, though information may in theory be publicly available, it seems that it reaches only other technical experts who are able to understand and assess it. By and large, it has not filtered through to affected people who may not be experts and therefore neither possess nor have ready access to knowledge of the nature and extent of the hazards in their environment.
2/
Children educating others Teaching disaster management to kids may be the best way to get the information out into the community – at least to households with kids. Puppets, posters and fridge magnets seem to help people to respond appropriately as a disaster looms. We are reminded that children are citizens of the present.
There are three outcomes of education for citizenship: social and moral responsibility, political literacy and community involvement. Impressive though this was, the following speaker, Neil Barker, primary school principal seconded by Emergency Management Australia (EMA) for school education was a masterful presenter. He is working with curriculum, using Victorian Education Inquiry Learning approaches: think about a topic in general, decide what you need to know, think about more information, make decisions and act on them. It is also called problem solving or discovery learning. It works on loops of: ask, investigate, create, discuss and reflect.
Disaster management education has problems – it is competing in an overcrowded curriculum scrum. Further, people see schools as the social hospitals that will fix all our ills – environmental protection, relationship repair, bike ed etc. It does fit into Studies of Society and the Environment, so there is hope for inclusion from the national down through the states. It, in turn, can at best become part of the knowledge explosion. So inquiry learning is real-world learning, and there are many resources (web) available. Disaster preparedness could be sold as a good ‘Key” into real and relevant study for individuals, with a personal development focus.
3/ Warnings
Reinforced throughout this report, the workshop participants were told that weather warnings should ‘provoke people into doing something’, and that agencies need to know that the message is received, understood, believed and confirmed. The information should be personalised and aim to lead to a decision to action.
The vast majority of the public are unaware of the severe weather events that have taken place or are about to. I just thought they were good points to consider in helping people understand what is taking place, and what they can do in readiness in the event a disaster should happen. Not to scare but to educate.
Cheers
