Reports the experiences of a continuing education group of geographers crossing the Indian Ocean by ship. Describes the bizarre weather conditions encountered and the lack of meteorological coverage of the area. Explains how knowledge of basic physical geography helped to avert a disaster when weather reports did not match the conditions being…

Addresses development and implementation of emergency procedures in school settings. The first step is to establish a school-safety committee that meets quarterly and a district safety committee that sets overall direction. Procedure manuals should specify staff responsibilities and should be written so that recovery processes may be switched…

Five weeks after Katrina landed in Louisiana, Bonnabel and 78 other Jefferson Parish schools were welcoming students back--and far sooner than many had expected. The worst damage in Louisiana from Hurricane Katrina did not come to Jefferson Parish. That distinction was reserved for portions of New Orleans, as well as St. Bernard Parish, where…

This article describes how a teacher changed all his plans to teach the hurricane. When the Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, kids become naturally curious and seek answers in an event this big. The author suggests the use of tragedies to help them grow as students and as citizens.

Individuals and their communities experience trauma and loss during times of natural disaster. Using Hurricane Katrina as a context, the authors provide an overview of the phases of disaster coping and discuss the ambiguous losses that can occur during these traumatic and life-changing times. The use of rituals as a creative intervention is…

The emotional trauma of recent events may never go away. A million people were uprooted by Hurricane Katrina, including an estimated 372,000 children of school age. Three weeks later, Hurricane Rita slammed into the Texas-Louisiana coastline, forcing thousands more to evacuate. Acute symptoms of trauma range from confusion, nightmares, and…

This qualitative study strives to provide a greater understanding of the past, current, and future state of education in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami. The researchers' key objectives are to provide additional insight to educators of the far-reaching impact of the tsunami via a website they created. Rather than concentrate on the same sort of…

On December 26, 2004, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake--the most powerful in more than 40 years--struck deep under the Indian Ocean. It was centered about 100 miles southwest off the coast of Aceh, Indonesia, and triggered massive tsunamis across the coasts of Asia and Africa. In Aceh province, located at the northwest tip of the island of Sumatra in…

Most colleges and universities are poorly prepared to efficiently address and manage crises. That is the finding of a survey, the results of which were in the January/February issue of the publication, "Change." The authors point to Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 terrorist attacks as wake-up calls to higher education and maintain both that campus…

This article focuses on the experiences and survival of displaced children in four large migrations in U.S. history. The chaos and despair caused by Hurricane Katrina are reminders that the displacement and survival of children are timely and relevant topics for the social studies curriculum. Hurricane Katrina was the worst natural disaster in…

This essay is entitled "The 'I' of the Storm" in order to stress the very personal nature of teaching in the immediate, post-Katrina semester of Fall 2005. The University of New Orleans (UNO) was the only university in the city to open that semester, and many traumatized instructors, the author included, were serving the thousands of…

Mother-child dyads who experienced a devastating tornado talked about the storm and about two affectively more positive or neutral events at each of two time points: 4 months and 10 months after the storm. The conversations were analyzed to determine whether mothers and/or children's contributions differed as a function of event type and whether…

After the hurricanes, faculty asked the students to help with the relief efforts in different ways. Most students volunteered to work in shelters directly with individual or groups of children, youths, and adults. After their experiences, they wrote brief reflections about what they had done. Their comments show that they developed a better…

Administered questionnaire on tornado hazard to 142 adults. Results indicated that subject's gender and education level were best predictors of perceived probability of tornado recurrence; that ratings of severity of potential damage were related to education level; and that gender accounted for significant percentage of variance in anxiety…

Describes a newly developed model of intervention that responds rapidly to natural disasters or political and social crises. The model focuses on community response to the event to identify a community of sufferers. Highlights the efficacy of service delivery wherein the relationships among social workers are egalitarian and cooperative.…