Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

45 minutes – Part A: Living Snapshots
30 minutes – Part B: Putting a Face to the Problem
10 minutes – Reflection

Talking about bushfires often involves addressing sensitive issues. Bushfires are innately linked to death and dying, and as such, may evoke strong emotions, opinions, or raise challenging questions about values and beliefs that have no easy answers.

Please review the Handling Sensitive Topics and Issues factsheet for information on how to create a safe environment for your students and monitor all students during and after conducting this lesson. If you're aware of any students who may struggle with this content, chat with their parents or caregivers about a strategy for this child prior to the lesson.

Part A: Living Snapshots

Step 1.

Gathered below and in the design document are some snapshots of people's lived experiences of a bushfire.

These personal anecdotes give students an appreciation of how people felt during and after a bushfire, what they identified as the hardest challenges to overcome and what they felt were the most testing losses. By gaining a deep personal understanding of how people are affected by bushfires, students will be equipped and motivated to create impactful solutions in the next phases of the process.

Students can read through these accounts independently.

Provisions for Learning Support: Read through these accounts as a whole class, allowing time for students to share their thoughts and reflections.

On New Year's Eve, our family home, my parents' dream home, the home my dad built 27 years ago, went up in flames.

We loved that house, in the breezy beachside suburb of Surf Beach, Batemans Bay. It was full of so many happy memories.

Just a couple of weeks ago, my brother and I were looking at all the photos on the walls, laughing and reminiscing about the times we had growing up. I found a watch I loved as a kid, and my journal from primary school.

Unfortunately I left them behind and now they're gone. All those photos, gone. Hours of home movies, gone. The cuckoo clock that 21-year-old Mum carried in her backpack on her big trip around Europe before she married Dad, gone.

– James Findlay

(Source: https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/what-to-say-to-someone-who-lost-home-in-australian-bushfires/11847934)

Around 2:30 pm, we received a text message from our neighbour who had reliable news that her house, along with ours and many others in the same street, was gone. The hope evaporated.

With a weird numbness, we phoned our boys and told them the sad news. The rest of the afternoon and evening, which was New Year’s Eve, vanished in an avalanche of phone calls and text messages regarding the fate of our house, neighbours, and friends.

The depth of concern and commiserations were a tangible reminder of how important that house had been for so many of our friends and family, as a place of escape and sanctuary, laughter, warmth, revitalization and relaxation, an almost spiritual-like home base. Gone.

– Neil Ward

(Source: https://www.vox.com/2020/1/24/21063638/australian-bushfires-2019-experience)

On the edge of town, a soft-spoken and gentle man named Malcolm Elmslie pads warily to the edge of a rubble collection that once was his century-old Cobargo homestead.

“I know what I’ve lost,” he says, and he leaves a long, haunting space of dead air between his next word. “Everything.”

Malcolm woke at 2.30 am on New Year’s Eve to see the terrifying firefront charging down from the hills surrounding his home. There was a long period during his frantic escape from the house when he couldn’t find his dog, Bonnie.

And then the dog emerged and he’d never been so grateful to see a living thing walking toward him.

(Source: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/australian-bushfires-stories-of-heroism-heartbreak-and-hope/news-story/95db8ced15f4d64e85fd36fd30263685)

We believed the safest option was to move swiftly to the town’s wharf. We found an ideal spot by the water’s edge with a low rock wall and parked the car. To protect ourselves from hot embers flying through the air, we wrapped ourselves in woollen blankets. Others nearby did the same. In the event of a firestorm, our final escape option was to jump in the water, shielding ourselves behind the rock wall.

We waited on the water’s edge all night. The smoke was dense. Even though we were wearing swimming goggles, our eyes stung. Our throats were raw. To help us breathe, we used medical masks and a torn-up sarong wrapped around our faces.

(Source: https://www.vox.com/2020/1/24/21063638/australian-bushfires-2019-experience)

Volunteer firefighter Peter Davis has lived on Kangaroo Island, off South Australia, for more than 70 years.

With the help of his two sons, Brenton and Ben, he was ready to defend his childhood home from the impending fire on January 3.

They were moving sheep when all of a sudden the fire was upon them “within seconds”.

“We had time to say, ‘get in the house’, we got in the house, and it just exploded all around us,” Peter said.

The ferocious fire front passed within minutes and daylight returned.

When Peter and his sons came out of the house, they saw widespread destruction of the farm and equipment.

Initially they thought the house was saved.

But the relief was short-lived when they realised the roof had caught on fire.

“We knew that we had a few minutes,” Peter said.

“We gathered clothes into cases and got a whole lot of documents, got a few toys for the kids, got photos off the walls and stuffed them in the car.”

(Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-03/inside-the-australian-bushfires-crisis/11890458?nw=0)

Optional: Consider taking students through this interactive from ABC news.

Provisions for Learning Support: Be aware this visual experience contains images and footage of being close to bushfires which, while effective at generating empathy for the people in these situations, might be distressing for some students.

Remember to refer to the Handling Sensitive Topics and Issues factsheet for information on how to create a safe environment for your students and monitor all students during and after conducting this lesson.

Step 2.

As a class, create a vocabulary list of feelings you sense these people were experiencing as well as descriptive adjectives of the sensory experience of being caught in a bushfire.

Students record this list in their design document.

Step 3.

Facilitate a discussion:

Are students seeing any common themes about what these people valued most?
What do students think would be the greatest challenge to recovery after experiencing a bushfire?
Students may wish to share some of their own challenging personal experiences with bushfires.

Part B: Putting a face to the problem

Step 1.

Independently, using the design document, students list the top ten things they would look to secure if a bushfire was threatening their home. Suggestions might include photographs, clothes, toys, pets and essential documents, such as birth certificates.

Remind students that the lives of their family members might be among their priorities; this is why bushfire warnings often advise leaving a threatened property before it’s too late, as material possessions can be replaced but lives cannot.

Students should also include a short justification for why they prioritised these things.

Step 2.

Ask students to imagine they are someone whose property has been impacted by a bushfire. Give this person a name and a background.

Step 3.

Independently students write a short piece of creative non-fiction from the perspective of this person before, during and after experiencing a bushfire. They are describing the bushfire event, detailing how they were impacted and what they were feeling.

Students should draw on the experiences of people they have read about in Part A as well as on the vocabulary list for inspiration on writing an impactful piece.

Provisions for Extending Students: If students appear engaged, consider giving them more time to go and explore more primary resources. There are many news reports, documentaries and firsthand accounts of people's experiences. The more students empathise and incorporate these affective experiences into their perspective, the more they will intimately understand the challenges and be motivated to solve them.

Reflection

Ask students to select one moment, image or quote from the personal accounts they have reviewed in this lesson.

Students record this in their design document.

Ask students to write a short (two sentences) reflection on why this aspect in particular affected them.

Students may share their thinking with the class.

Where to next?

Students have created a powerful emotional touchpoint for the impact of bushfires on people and communities. They will be able to refer to the empathise phase for motivation to create solutions that will help people in similar circumstances in the future. They will also have a strong grounding in exactly how people are impacted by bushfires, which will assist them in identifying the challenges and problems of building bushfire-resistant housing in the next phase.

Teacher Reflection

It can be challenging to try a different teaching methodology, but it is a great way to further develop your practice.

In the design process model the instructor's task is to challenge students' preconceived ideas, foster their curiosity, pose challenging questions and provide support and guidance to students as they are self-directed in pursuing knowledge. This can potentially be difficult for students who are more familiar with the traditional role in learning of instructors as the main disseminator of information.

Take a moment to reflect on your practice by answering one or two of the following questions.

Did students appear confident in approaching the tasks of this lesson? If so, what's one thing you think you did that was effective in supporting them? If not, what's one thing you could do to better support them in the future?
What's something new or interesting or that you liked about this lesson? Why?
What's one aspect of this lesson that you found challenging to teach? Why?
What's one area of your practice that you felt these lessons helped you develop or practise? How?
What's one part of this lesson you would do differently if you were to teach it again in the future?
Were there any parts or activities that students may need more time on before progressing to the next lesson?
Did you identify any gaps in students' understanding?

Bushfire-Resistant Housing - Empathise Phase

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