4. Becoming Disaster Resilient

Learning intentions:

  • Understand our capacity to use resources and skills to reduce hazard impacts and increase resilience.
  • Locate information online about what people can do to reduce the impacts of hazards.

Building Resilience 

We all have skills and attributes that assist us when coping with difficult situations. Using these skills and attributes, combined with using available knowledge and resources, provides us with the capacity to reduce the impacts of natural hazards.

We can use our capacity to prepare, plan and act when a natural hazard threatens to impact our community.

Activity 1: Animation

In Pairs:

Watch the animation and make a list of what people can do to protect themselves from natural hazards.  Write down as many of these as you can. You can watch the animation multiple times to make sure you get them all.

Activity 2:  Finding information

Taking Action

Knowledge of natural hazards and risk is important, but we also need to act. In an emergency, our minds can become overwhelmed, thinking and making good decisions can be difficult. If we prepare and rehearse what to do in an emergency, we are more likely to act in a safe way when disaster threatens.

Prepare and Get Ready

Use the ‘Prepare & Get Ready’ section in the Vic Emergency website emergency.vic.gov.au to find the information required to complete these activities.

  1. Go to emergency.vic.gov.au
  2. Click on Prepare and Get Ready
  3. Click on Flood

In Pairs:

  1. Watch the short FloodSafe television commercial. Why should you never swim, play or drive in floodwater?
  2. List the 3 types of flooding that can occur. Is your home or school at risk from any of these types of flooding?
  3. What can you do to prepare for a flood event?
  4. List the types of flood warnings that are issued by the Bureau of Meteorology.
  5. If flooding is predicted, what can you do to respond?
  1. Go to emergency.vic.gov.au
  2. Click on Prepare and Get Ready
  3. Click on Storm

In Pairs:

  1. List 3 things you can do to reduce the impact of a storm on your home
  2. List 3 things you can do during a storm to stay safe.
  3. List 3 things you can do after a storm that will help you to recover and stay safe.

In Pairs:

  1. Go to emergency.vic.gov.au to complete the questions and activities below.

Find answers to following questions:

  1. Watch the short clip, “How to be prepared for fire”.
  2. Who can you talk to about preparing for fire?
  3. When is the best time to leave if fire threatens?
  4. Under the heading, Risk of Fire- click on Prepare your property and list 5 things you can do to prepare your property for the bushfire season.
  5. Under the heading, Risk of Fire– Click on the Fire ready quiz and complete the Fire ready quiz to test your bushfire knowledge?

Extension activity

  • What is capacity? What role does it play in disaster resilience?
  • What are the most important things people can do to reduce increase their resilience to flood, bushfire or storm?