Notes that reflection can support both teachers and students in the aftermath of a disaster. Examines the visual and written works of North Dakota and Minnesota children who were victims of the flooding of the Red River in 1997 as a representational way to gain a broad perspective on children's thinking about their experiences surrounding the…

Describes the threat of earthquakes, especially in southern California, and the development of a plan that would help parents, children, and staff cope with the emotions and trauma of earthquakes. Strategies include conducting monthly drills, stockpiling supplies, encouraging conversations about earthquakes, and holding a "Pretend Quake…

Describes the experiences of school librarians with organizing volunteers, assessing the destruction, and recovery and rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Andrew. Information gathering, record keeping, public relations, public service, communication, and organization are highlighted; and the value of storytelling in coping with disaster is…

Three months after Hurricane Andrew, 89 children in grades four to six who lived in two-parent families and had experienced the hurricane were tested. Children's symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder were related to their perceptions of parental conflict; this relationship was stronger for Hispanic children than for other ethnic groups.…

Notes that disasters are not simply large accidents but different kinds of events. Reviews journalism textbooks, finding that the authors who dealt with disaster coverage often state as fact what social scientists have shown to be inaccurate: most texts confuse accidents with disasters, are unaware panic is not a problem, and assume that complete…

Recommends a social studies activity that combines geography and history within a current events framework to make the curriculum more interesting and challenging to the students. Explains that students investigate natural disasters from around the world and determine the effect humans have on these "natural" occurrences. (CMK)

Responding to schools' need for disaster preparedness, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers a week-long course at its Emergency Management Institute (the Multi-Hazard Safety Program for Schools). FEMA recommends that school officials identify likely hazards, mitigate against them, develop response and postdisaster coping plans,…

The study of natural hazards, such as floods, hurricanes, and seismic disturbances, is most frequently relegated in American schools to middle school earth sciences courses or high school requirements in physical or environmental science. In those classes, the emphasis is on geophysical, "process-oriented" events or on what causes them…

New Orleans will probably never be the same after Hurricane Katrina. But when it comes to schools, many educators and analysts say that might not be all bad. Both in Louisiana and beyond, the wreckage in the Big Easy has sparked thinking about how the city might reinvent its beleaguered school system, in difficult straits long before the storm was…

Seeking to grasp what she called a "golden opportunity for rebirth" out of the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina, Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco asked the Louisiana legislature last week to embrace a plan that would give the state control of most New Orleans public schools. This article talks about the governor's plan to let the state…

School preparedness includes the possibility of a natural disaster, but recent events also confirm a need for preparedness and prevention efforts for intentional mass casualty incidents (MCIs). This survey examined the preparedness for the prevention and response for MCIs at public schools in Arkansas. This survey demonstrated that most school…

The date is September 9, 2005. This article is set in a rural Wisconsin community, a thousand miles north of New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina is about to make landfall. The four- and five- year- olds in Mrs. Olson's classroom have never experienced a hurricane or seen flood waters rise to cover the farms and houses they know, but they cannot…

An estimated 370,000 schoolchildren were displaced last year by Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States. One year after, hundreds of thousands of these displaced students remain scattered in schools across the nation. In Houston, which has the largest concentration of evacuees, two schools continue helping…

During the time author Pauline Leonard was writing this paper, Hurricane Katrina thrust itself upon the Gulf Coast, including many communities in southeast Louisiana. In the wake of the storm, reports emerged of the devastation, loss of life and destruction to property. Writing about personal experiences with developing and implementing…

In building an emergency management library collection within a training institution, technical data become secondary to identifying common goals, methods, and systems found at the federal, state, and local levels for responding to and planning for disasters and crises. These goals help identify emergency management skills public officials should…