Wildfire Preparedness and Safety Workshop by AH
Audience: This would work with high school students as well as for community members and homeowners.
Goals:
1. To increase awareness about fire’s role in our local ecosystem and how to be proactive when dealing with wildfires.
2. To create a group of citizens that share their knowledge with others to further create wildfire awareness.
Time: 6 hours excluding lunch
Message:
It’s important to understand fire’s role in an ecosystem and to be prepared when living in forested areas.
FEI Workshop materials to use:
PLT – Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Forests, Secondary Environmental Education Module
Activities:
PLT Activity - The Nature of Fire: Students will learn about the role of fire in forest ecosystems, will examine issues of fire in the wildland-urban interface, and will conduct a wildfire safety assessment in their community.
New Mexico State Standards:
Strand II: The Content of Science
Standard II (Life Science), 9th-12th grade: Understand the properties, structures, and processes of living things and the interdependence of living things and their environments.
Benchmark I: Understand how the survival of species depends on biodiversity and on complex interactions, including the cycling of matter and the flow of energy.
Ecosystems
1.Know that an ecosystem is complex and may exhibit fluctuations around a steady state or may evolve
over time. 2. Describe how organisms cooperate and compete in ecosystems (e.g., producers, decomposers,
herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, predator-prey, symbiosis, mutualism). 3. Understand and describe how available resources limit the amount of life an ecosystem can support
(e.g., energy, water, oxygen, nutrients).4.Critically analyze how humans modify and change ecosystems (e.g., harvesting, pollution, population
growth, technology).Energy Flow in the Environment
5.Explain how matter and energy flow through biological systems (e.g., organisms, communities,
ecosystems), and how the total amount of matter and energy is conserved but some energy is always released as heat to the environment.
Program Outline:
Activity 1 – Fire Effects – the role of fire
Activity 2 – Prescribed Fire and Fire-Dependent Species
Activity 3 – Field Trip to burned areas
Activity 4 – Wildfire Safety Assessment
Activity 5 – Communicating Fire
Mapping or GIS applications:
Could be used to view the effects of both Los Alamos fires and the compare how well mitigation efforts helped during the second fire.
Additional materials, resources, people:
Community Wildfire Protection Plan, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 2009
Los Alamos County Environmental Services Department
Los Alamos County Community Wildfire Protection Program
Los Alamos Fire Department
Involvement: This collaborative workshop would involve the county, fire department and local citizens and hopefully spread a renewed fire awareness and safety message throughout the community.
Challenges:
-Accessing what education has already been taught in the community; so many different organizations
are involved in this effort- Being sure to be sensitive to people who have lost homes in either the Cerro Grande fire or the Los
Conchas fire and the emotional aspects that these losses, and the evacuation, had on people.The Physical Side of Fire Lesson
Although I am not a physics or chemistry teacher, I think fire would be a great way to illustrate changes in matter, which applies to our 8th grade NM State Standards. This is something I would have to spend some time researching to better understand the physical and chemical properties of fire!
Audience: 8th graders
Goal: Use fire to illustrate the properties of matter, the characteristics of energy and their interactions.
Message: Fire is a chemical process that changes matter and transfers energy. (Law of Conservation of
Energy: Energy in neither created nor destroyed, it can only change in form – fire is a perfect example of this phenomenon).
FEI Workshop materials to use:
-The Book of Fire, William H. Cottrell Jr.
-Natural Inquirer, Vol. 4, Number 1, USDA Forest Service: Wildland Fire EditionActivities:
Activity 1:
-Smoke and Mirrors: Detecting the Amount of Gases in a Wildland Fire Smoke as background info
-Some type of Oxidation Experiment (#8, #10)
Activity 2:
-Dew It! Background information
-Some type of Condensation/Weather Experiment (#7 & #9)
-Prediction of likelihood of fire in their area based on the data collected along with GIS data found online. Check against online KBDI index for their area.
New Mexico State Standards:
Strand II: Content of ScienceStandard 1 (Physical Science), 8th grade: Understand the structure and properties of matter, the characteristics of energy, and the interactions between matter and energy.
Changes in Matter
7. Know that phase changes are physical changes that can be reversed (e.g., evaporation, condensation,
melting). 8. Describe various familiar physical and chemical changes that occur naturally (e.g., snow melting,
photosynthesis, rusting, burning). 9. Identify factors that influence the rate at which chemical reactions occur (e.g., temperature,
concentration).10. Know that chemical reactions can absorb energy (endothermic reactions) or release energy
(exothermic reactions).Program Outline:
See Activities for some very basic ideas using provided materials that would need to be adapted from the 5th grade level to 8th grade level
Mapping or GIS applications:
- Information about the topography of fire prone areas, vegetation moisture and fuel potential, and weather conditions, can be captured using GIS providing a useful tool in predicting the potential for wildfires and their spread so students could look up this information online to formulate their predictions.
Additional materials, resources, people:
-Information on matter, energy and chemical reactions
-Safe, but illustrative, experiments to conduct on these topics
Involvement: 8th grade students could demonstrate, and explain, their experiments for other students in the school
Challenges:
-For me, learning more about matter, energy and chemical reactions so I can come up with relevant and interesting experiments that all tie together!
Fire? Good or Bad? Lesson
Standard II (Life Science) Understand the properties, structures, and process of living things and the interdependence of living things and their environments.
Audience: 5th grade
Goal: Show how animals and plants are adapted to fire, some even depending on it to survive.
Message: Fire is important part of a healthy forest.
FEI Workshop materials to use:
- Natural Inquirer, Vol. 4, Number 1, USDA Forest Service: Wildland- Fire and the Changing Landscape, poster/info
Fire Cycle poster
- The Charcoal Forest: How Fire Helps Animals and Plants by Beth A. Paluso
- Fire Education Animal Cards
- Two sides of fire video
Activities:
Activity 1:
Class discussion (or writing assignment )of fire. What are some words to describe fire? Has anyone had a personal experience? What was it like for you?
Activity 2:
Time will Tell: Does Wildfire Damage the Prairie? (Prairie in New Mexico!) Background and activity
Activity 3:
Select an animal or plant from The Charcoal Forest: How Fire Helps Animals and Plants or The Fire Education Team animal cards, draw a poster explaining how this animal/plant benefits from fire. Share what you learned with the class.
New Mexico State Standards:
Strand II: Content of Science
2.Understand how food webs depict relationships between different organisms.
3.Know that changes in the environment can have different effects on different organisms (e.g., some organisms move, some survive, some reproduce, some die).
4.Describe how human activity impacts the environment.
Mapping or GIS applications:
Could show regrowth maps
Additional materials, resources, people:
Books from library on various plants and animals
Online sources of information on plants and animals
Visit to a burn area after 5 years
-Place posters in hallway so other students can see and read.
Challenges:
- Being sure to be sensitive to children who have lost homes in either the Cerro Grande fire or the Los
Conchas fire and the emotional aspects that these losses, and the evacuation, had on the children.
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