Masters of Disaster® Introduction

The American Red Cross, with generous support of the Allstate Foundation, has developed a curriculum that not only teaches students about disaster safety, but helps teachers meet their required objectives as well! We know that teachers have a lot to cover to meet the learning objectives prescribed by their school system. That's why we've developed the Masters of Disaster curriculum--to help teachers integrate important disaster safety instruction into their regular core subjects such as language arts, math, science, and social studies. This is not additional material for teachers to work into an already packed school day. Rather, the Masters of Disaster curriculum, which is aligned with the National Education Standards, supplements the lessons teachers are already teaching. At the same time it provides students with information to help them prepare for disasters and stay safe during and after a disaster in their home, school, or community.

How does this work? The Masters of Disaster Curriculum Kit contains ready-to-go lesson plans, activities, and demonstrations on disaster-related topics that teachers can incorporate within core subject areas. For example, a teacher can show students how to plot latitude and longitude on a map by using the curriculum's lesson on how to track a hurricane, or augment instruction on the water cycle with activities in the lessons on floods. Or a teacher working with students on word recognition and decoding will choose to use the vocabulary section of the curriculum.

While strengthening students' core academic skills in science, math, social studies, and language arts (including reading, word comprehension, and spelling), the Masters of Disaster curriculum educates them about hazards that cause injury, death, and damage in the United States. The materials are designed for flexibility, so that teaching teams can integrate hazard-related lessons into the core academic subjects. The curriculum focuses on--

• General disaster preparedness
  
• Hurricanes
  
• Floods
  
• Tornadoes
  
• Lightning
  
• Earthquakes