HEART Force Colorado Wildfire - Middle School

Katya Schloesser, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at University of Colorado Boulder

In this lesson, students investigate wildfires in Colorado by analyzing wildfire data and information to create a local news story that educates community members about wildfire risk. In Part 1, students watch and discuss a short documentary about wildfires. In Part 2, students analyze wildfire data to build understanding of the causes, impacts, locations, and frequency of wildfires. In Part 3, students create a local news story for their community.

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Notes from our reviewers

The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials.

Teachers should be aware of students who may have been personally impacted by wildfire as this topic can be difficult. See the CLEAN page [link https://cleanet.org/clean/literacy/tools/empowerment/index.html 'Mental Health - How to teach climate change towards empowerment'] It will be helpful for the teacher to review the graphs and videos ahead of time. Also note the student hand-outs, teacher slides, and resource folder provided to go along with this lesson. The different jigsaw station questions vary in difficulty and higher order thinking. Students may be grouped according to level, or teachers may hybridize groups to encourage peer mentoring. This activity encourages students to start thinking about how to prepare for a wildfire. This lesson can also be connected to a wildfire game that is linked on the lesson website and can be found here [link https://cires.colorado.edu/outreach/resources/game/heart-force-wildfire-game].
This lesson explores the causes, risks, and trends associated with wildfires using data available from a variety of resources. It also has students explore fire safety, and how to prepare for, respond to, and rebound from a wildfire. A wide variety of background information and resources are provided for students and teachers to dig deep into the topic. Resource developed in collaboration with expert scientists - no CLEAN expert science review was needed.
The lesson follows the 5E learning model, and encourages students to develop their own understandings from the scientific data that they analyze. Most of the lesson is accomplished using online resources and could be facilitated in a virtual/hybrid format, and will likely appeal to students who enjoy utilizing online resources. Students will need some previous experience interpreting and understanding scientific graphs. The teacher guide is organized clearly, and links to external resources and data. Websites are all provided in the lesson, making it easy for a teacher to navigate. Student worksheets, teacher slides, materials lists, standards alignment, learning goals, guiding questions, and key vocabulary are all provided. Jigsaw and mind mapping used.
All links are active and current as of the time of review. No software is needed other than access to the internet. Lesson materials (student worksheets, slides, videos, graphs, etc.) are either provided or are website links. Lots of background information and resources are provided. Because links to online resources are also provided in the student worksheets, prep time on the teacher's part should be minimal. Materials included in both PDF and Google Drive formats.