Resilient Australia: Building Resilience To Natural Disasters
Australia has experienced increasingly frequent, intense, repeated, and now overlapping shocks such as fires, floods, and drought. Coupled with chronic stresses including economic inequity, reduced levels of services in rural and regional areas, and social exclusion, these disasters have conspired to challenge communities across the country. Communities have little or no time to prepare, respond and recover from these events before the next arrives.
Minderoo Foundation
Minderoo Foundation’s Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative aim to reduce the harm caused to communities and the environment by fire and flood. They harness the collective power of communities, industry, government, philanthropy and the research sector to lift Australia to be the global leader in fire and flood resilience by 2025. For more information, see Minderoo Foundation’s website.
Design and Technology Lessons
The Years 7 to 8 Design and Technology lessons will encourage students to explore the essence of sustainable and resilient design and how to improve the resilience of communities that have or may be affected by natural disasters. Students will analyse current technologies and designs and will have opportunities to create concepts, build prototypes and use their critical and creative thinking skills to explore how society can mitigate hazards and reduce the harmful impact of natural disasters, to create a resilient Australia.
The following designs and technology lessons and future resources comprise of two mutually reinforcing components — the principles and the environments in which resilient communities strive – which are designed to holistically guide teachers, community leaders and organisations in their work within communities. These lessons are best delivered as a sequential set of lessons to build students’ confidence to discuss the devastating impacts of disasters through the lens of hope and optimism.