Christian Aid: Disaster Zone Games + Lesson Resources

Disaster Zone is a suite of materials based around two of the popular and highly interactive games for classroom use created by Christian Aid:

“Emergency Exit” (for lower secondary) and “Disaster Strikes” (for 7-11 year olds) are interactive games showing the devastating impact of a disaster on a community living in poverty. There are no specific links to CfE Experiences and Outcomes, but these can be readily made.

Downloadable teachers’ notes include several lesson plans, worksheets and full instructions on how the games may be used in the classroom. There is also a PowerPoint presentation and a link to a DVD which can be streamed online.

The Disaster Zone materials are designed to be flexible and adaptable. They may be used as part of a topic in Social Studies/Geography/Modern Studies or RME or some forms of Social Education. Equally, they are suitable for as part of an interdisciplinary learning experience, or in response to a disaster when it happens.

The game and associated lessons/activities will allow pupils to:

• apply critical thinking to their interpretation of information and images, identify a disaster, explain the culmination of factors that result in disaster,
• consider disasters in the context of human development and analyse media coverage of disasters
• understand how and why disasters impact on people living in poverty,
• investigate what communities need to cope with disaster: case study information is provided for disasters in Haiti (earthquake) and the Philippines (flooding)
• explore the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘human-made’ disasters
• make the link between climate change and the increasing frequency and intensity of some types of disasters
• consider appropriate responses to a disaster.