Using "Dante's Peak" to Discuss Response to Risk
Michael Phillips, Illinois Valley Community College
In this classroom activity, students watch the movie "Dante's Peak" up to the point where Harry Dalton's supervisor arrives and talks to the town council. Students then compare and contrast Harry's assessment and advice to that of his supervisor, discuss the reaction of the town council members, and develop their own recommendations for how the scientists and town should proceed.

Creating a Natural Disaster Blog/VoiceThread to Understand Resilience
Anne Hall, Emory University
Student groups create blogs or VoiceThreads on selected natural disaster events including a description of the event, the cause of the disaster, response & recovery, prediction & prevention and resilience to the event.

Role playing the 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake and trial to debate responsibility for communicating and understanding risks and natural hazards
Amber Kumpf, Muskegon Community College
In this activity, students reenact key events leading up to and following the 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake and trial. This leads into a debate on responsibility for communicating and understanding risks and natural hazards.

Using a Town Meeting Scenario to Explore the Impacts of Hurricane Sandy
Jennifer Haney, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
In this role-playing activity, students are assigned into groups which will explore specific roles related to Hurricane Sandy. A mock town meeting scenario where the community is requesting input for how to address the challenges of rebuilding their homes, businesses, and infrastructure allows for the class to learn more about the multiple perspectives, issues, and interests resulting from this devastating disaster.

Know Your Audience! Audience Analysis Exercise to Increase Audience Centered Communication and Teaching of Risk and Resilience
Carrie Nelms, University of Arkansas Main Campus
This activity will help develop critical thinking skills in analyzing an audience to customize a risk assessment communication message toward their needs. With climate change disasters becoming more prevalent,scientist will benefit learning an audience centered approach to deliver an effective risk assessment message to a multi-diverse audience.

Family Stress theories and risk communication to evaluate and build family resilience
Tatjana Hocke-Mirzashvili, James Madison University
In this activity, students use theoretical knowledge about family stress theories to analyze family vignettes and make predictions about the level of risk or resilience each family might have should a natural disaster occur. To increase resilience, risk communication strategies are discussed.

Visualizing the impact of storm surge and sea level rise on coastal communities
Eileen Johnson, Bowdoin College

Developing student literacy on risk, resilience, and strategies for living with disaster uncertainty
Monica Gowan, Central Washington University
In this guided research and critical thinking activity, students prepare a research paper comprised of two parts: 1) a "state-of-the-science" review and synthesis of selected literature from risk and resilience research (provided) and 2) a brief critical appraisal of how current knowledge is (or could be) applied to building disaster resilience in a real-world scenario. Part 2 will be set in a student-selected hazard context (coastal hazards, flooding, or earthquake), employment sector (academia, government, private industry, services, non-profit), and geopolitical sphere of influence (e.g., Resilience to earthquake disaster in the student population at Universidad de Lima, Peru).

Developing a Multi-Hazard Mitigation Strategy
This page is authored by Rebekah Green, Western Washington University.
As a culminating assignment in Natural Hazards Planning, students work in teams to create 15-year mitigation strategy for a selected jurisdiction using the FEMA 386 methodology for prioritizing mitigation options.

The Science of Disasters eTextbook Activity
Sian Proctor, South Mountain Community College
The Science of Disasters etextbook is a Softchalk activity designed to give students an introduction to disaster terminology including risk and resiliency. It is typically used as a pre-reading assignment for non-science majors in an introductory disasters class.