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AWARE (Advanced Weather Awareness & Response Education)

Earth Science, Weather Awareness, and Emergency Management

William Thompson, Cody Garrison, Javier Elizondo, Emmett Mathews, Braden Roper, Diana Gedye | Published: December 1st, 2021 by K20 Center

  • Grade Level Grade Level 6th – 10th Grade
  • Subject Subject Science
  • Course Course Earth Science, Environmental Science
  • Time Frame Time Frame 120 Minutes

Learning Objectives

AWARE uses realistic weather data and tools to simulate natural hazard events like tornadoes. This way, students learn about real storm mitigation techniques.

As students play AWARE, they learn a variety of skills, including interpreting data, managing emergencies, and assessing strategies for damage control:

  • Given scaffolded data and information, students interpret that data to make predictions about possible natural hazard events.

  • Given an emergency scenario and a set of possible emergency management decisions, students balance the economic and safety repercussions of their decisions.

  • Students assess technologies and strategies that can be used to mitigate the damage caused by natural hazard events.

  • Students describe how different STEM professions contribute to the prediction and mitigation of natural hazard events.

About AWARE (Advanced Weather Awareness & Response Education)

As they play, each student acts as an emergency manager for a fictional region. Tornadoes, hailstorms, floods, and wildfires devastate the area. Each student must interpret weather maps and simulations to determine the best course of action, whether that be hiring STEM professionals, building certain structures, or researching new technologies to help reduce damages and injuries.

AWARE emphasizes resource management, as students’ actions may have both positive and negative effects. Students must weigh the safety and economic repercussions of their decisions, balancing a limited budget to keep the region alive and flourishing. If students succeed in preparing for disasters and offsetting the costs of storm damages, then their citizens’ trust in them will increase.

Interactive tutorials and feedback help students gauge the effectiveness of their strategies and weather awareness. AWARE helps students build a solid foundation from which they can progress into more advanced concepts in earth science and STEM.

If you are an instructor wondering how best to integrate AWARE into your teaching, consider starting with the free lesson "State of AWAREness: The Influence of Natural Hazards on Human Activity."

Standards

Next Generation Science Standards (Grades 6, 7, 8)
MS-ESS3-2: Analyze and interpret data on natural hazards to forecast future catastrophic events and inform the development of technologies to mitigate their effects.
Next Generation Science Standards (Grades 9, 10, 11, 12)
HS-ESS3-1: Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.

Media

Game Resources

In addition to full implementation support, the K20 Center provides the following documents to help instructors effectively integrate AWARE (Advanced Weather Awareness & Response Education) into their classrooms:

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 License.