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Download a zip file that includes all the web pages and downloadable files from the instructor's materialsAssessment of Module Goals
Below, you will find a list of assessments for the Major Storms and Community Resilience module. Each unit has formative and/or summative assessments to measure student progress toward individual unit learning outcomes. Additionally, the embedded assessment questions below are particularly helpful for measuring student progress toward key points of understanding in the overall module. These questions focus on identifying hazards and analyzing data in the context of mitigation, community preparedness, and resilience. Finally, to assess overall learning in this module, you will find a summative assessment directly related to the module goals. Review of the Town Hall Meeting assignments directly assesses how well students can evaluate geoscience and social science data to identify, examine, and analyze environmental, political, and social hazards and vulnerabilities for case studies and their community in the context of major storms, and how well students can develop and communicate recommendations on how to reduce environmental, social, and political risks for a community plan regarding major storms.
Overall Module Assessments
Summative Assessment
Each team is required to undertake writing a policy memorandum from their perspective of their assigned stakeholder position, which evaluates local hazard mitigation plans and local geoscience data specific to a particular storm type and presents recommendations for their community to improve those plans. This document forms the foundation of the team's presentation in the town hall meeting to be held in class. Each team member is expected to participate in presenting and defending their recommendations and strategies before the class. Teams will be assessed on the strength of their recommendations, their ability to persuade other stakeholders to accept their plans, and their performance during the debate.
- Talking Points and Policy Paper Guidelines (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 29kB Aug14 24)
- Policy Paper and Debate Rubrics (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 27kB Aug14 24)
Unit Assessments
Note: Rubrics for these unit assessments are also presented on the individual unit pages.
Unit 1 Assessments:
By the end of Unit 1, students should be able to:
- List as many natural hazards as they can.
- Mark each hazard as frequent (3), common (2), rare (1), or absent (0) for New Hampshire.
- Rank the hazards in priority for state funding: high priority (3), moderate priority (2), low priority (1), do not fund (0).
- Explain why the highest priority hazard was so ranked.
The Unit 1 assessment is the pre- and post-unit assessment survey:
.It can be scored using the
; (also available as a ).Unit 2 Assessments:
By the end of Unit 2, students should be able to:
- Critically evaluate geoscience data.
- Translate that data into a risk communication instrument for a general audience.
Students will be assessed through their performance on the Sea Level Rise Activity (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 30kB Oct10 24) and the
; and follow-on Revision Assignment (Microsoft Word 21kB Nov4 16).They can be scored using the
, and Press Release rubrics for the first draft (Acrobat (PDF) 21kB Aug3 16) and for the second draft (Acrobat (PDF) 84kB Nov4 16).Unit 3 Assessments:
By the end of Unit 3, students should be able to:
- Evaluate credible geoscience and social science data to identify environmental, political, and social hazards and vulnerabilities for their community in the context of major storms.
- Collect and examine relevant weather-related and community data to analyze and evaluate community preparedness and current and future vulnerabilities.
- Determine stakeholders to assess levels of risk and vulnerability across the community.
- Identify gaps in community hazard mitigation plans for major storms.
- Develop and communicate recommendations on how to reduce environmental, social, and political risks and design a comprehensive community plan to respond to major storms.
Students will be assessed through their performance on the Policy Position Paper and in the Town Hall Debate Talking Points and Policy Paper Guidelines (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 29kB Aug14 24).
This Unit's assessment is also to be used as the module's summative assessment (see above), and it can be scored using Policy Paper and Debate Rubrics (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 27kB Aug14 24).
