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Teams Add Iconic NASA ‘Worm’ Logo to Artemis II Rocket, Spacecraft

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Collegiate teams to focus on natural disasters in 2024 gateways to blue skies competition.

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In this year’s Gateways to Blue Skies competition, NASA asks collegiate teams to examine aviation-related systems that will aid in natural disaster management.

In this year’s Gateways to Blue Skies Competition: Advancing Aviation for Natural Disasters (aka, Blue Skies), NASA asks collegiate teams to examine aviation-related systems that will aid in natural disaster management. As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of many natural disasters, NASA Aeronautics and its partners seek ideas for technologies that can be onboarded to improve aerial disaster management efforts immediately and into the next approximately 10 years.  

Aviation technologies have the potential to aid in disaster relief, assist in firefighting missions, and provide supplies to hard-to-reach areas during an emergency event. Many emergency response professionals believe there is no one proposed concept that will be applicable for all different natural disasters or can be applied to all phases of management, opening this competition to a wide range of possibilities. New technologies and applications gained from this crowdsourced competition may be developed further by NASA for use in coordinating and facilitating disaster management.

NASA Aeronautics TACP Director John Cavolowsky addresses 2023 Gateways to Blue Skies participants at the Awards Ceremony.

“Natural disaster poses real threats to society, the economy, and the lives of individuals and communities – not to mention the health of the planet. There are significant innovation opportunities within aviation to support the future needs of disaster management: to provide more timely and actionable information, reduce the risks and workload posed to emergency responders, to provide new cost-effective technologies that improve efficiency of the preparation, response, and recovery – often at a much larger scale and at a much faster pace than are required for solving ordinary problems,” said Dr. Marcus Johnson, project manager in the Aeronautics Directorate at NASA Ames Research Center and 2024 Blue Skies co-chair. “I am very much looking forward to seeing the ideas that stem from this year’s Gateways to Blue Skies contenders.”

2023 First Place Winner Boston University team members discuss their clean aviation energy concept with NASA judges

Sponsored by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s (ARMD’s) University Innovation (UI) Project, Blue Skies encourages diverse, multi-disciplinary teams of college students to conceptualize unique systems-level ideas and analysis to an aviation-themed problem identified annually. It aims to engage as many students as possible – from all backgrounds and collegiate levels, freshman to graduate.

In this competition, participating students in teams of two to six will select a system or systems that can be applied to a specific use case in one type of natural disaster and disaster management phase. Competitors must choose technologies that can achieve high technology readiness by 2035.

Teams will submit concepts in a five-to-seven page proposal and accompanying two-minute video, which will be judged in a competitive review process by NASA and industry experts. Up to eight finalist teams will receive up to $8,000 each to continue their research to develop a final research paper and infographic, and to attend the 2024 Gateways to Blue Skies Forum to be held in June 2024 at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Forum winners will be offered the opportunity to intern with NASA Aeronautics in the academic year following the Forum.

“This theme is increasingly relevant to everyone as we continue to see the impacts of climate change,” said Steven Holz, UI Assistant Manager and Blue Skies Co-Chair. “There are many untapped or under-utilized capabilities that can be deployed through aeronautics for all types of natural disasters and across the different phases of disaster management. Innovation from today’s teams may prove vital in making advances that affect individuals and environments affected by natural disasters.”

Teams interested in participating in the challenge should review competition guidelines and eligibility requirements posted on the Gateways to Blue Skies competition website, https://blueskies.nianet.org . Teams are encouraged to submit a non-binding Notice of Intent (NOI) by October 16, 2023 via the website. Proposal and videos are due February 27, 2024.

“Blue Skies has been transformational for participants,” said Koushik Datta, UI Project Manager. “It’s incredible to see how engaging in practical solutions to real-world problems in aeronautics through this competition has affected students’ systems-level thinking, networking opportunities, and academic profile. Blue Skies is inspiring the next generation of aeronautics change-makers, while also providing tangible innovations for aviation and NASA aeronautics to consider developing further.”

The Gateways to Blue Skies Competition is sponsored by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s (ARMD’s) University Innovation project (UI) is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA).

For full competition details, including design guidelines and constraints, relevant resources, and information on how to apply, visit the Blue Skies website at:

NASA’s Gateways to Blue Skies Competition

For more information about NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, visit:  https://www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch/programs

For more information about the National Institute of Aerospace, visit:  www.nianet.org

Related Terms

  • Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate
  • Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program
  • University Innovation

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natural disasters project for college

NASA Autonomous Flight Software Successfully Used in Air Taxi Stand-Ins

Ways to Support Students Through Natural Disasters

In 2020, there were a total of 416 natural disaster events worldwide. Natural disasters cause unplanned displacement and disruption on college students; In order to adequately support students, colleges and universities need to enact programs that meet students’  mental health and basic needs while also addressing impacts to academic progress. As institutional administrators develop student emergency aid programs, they can look to past examples of effective student support response to natural disasters. Here are several examples of l disaster preparedness that build resilient campuses and effective student emergency support.

How colleges have supported students through natural disasters

Wildfires have been a consistent, natural part of California’s landscape; however, the frequency and severity have steadily increased over the years. Colleges and universities see the impact of these fires firsthand. Following the 2017 Tubbs Fire in California, Santa Rose Junior College’s enrollment dropped 6% , and a student survey revealed that numerous students felt stressed and in need of mental health support. At Sonoma State University, demand for counseling grew by over 50% , and therapists from other Cal State campuses came to help.

During the 2018 Camp Fire in California, Butte College and the California State University, Chico, closed for two weeks , which cost Butte College almost $6.5 million and displaced over 800 students. Those 800 displaced students, in addition to the one-fourth of Butte College students who had already reported experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives before the fire, saw their struggle to afford food, housing, and health care magnified when the school shut down. 

Butte College’s basic needs center staff distributed laptops, gas gift cards, and mental health counseling information in parking lots, and the college allowed students to drop classes with no financial penalty. Recognizing the need to guarantee employee needs would also be met, the college put staff, including hourly workers, on paid leave. College staff also helped students’ families and community members apply for FEMA assistance.

Butte’s enrollment dropped by 12% after the fire, but demand for basic needs services increased. Over 1,000 students were visiting the campus basic needs resource center in early 2020, compared with 250 a week before the fire. The campus added a second basic needs location in response and piloted a twelve-week counseling program to address post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Emergency aid programs in action

Emergencies by definition are unexpected, and institutions need to design broader emergency aid programs to support unplanned natural disasters. In October 2019, ten tornadoes struck the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Dallas College had just launched a partnership with Edquity, allowing them to quickly implement a disaster relief program to provide students with the emergency cash they needed.  Immediately after the tornadoes struck, more than 100 students filed applications to receive emergency grants. In the next few weeks, nearly 1,000 Dallas College students used the Edquity app to apply for emergency funds. Approved students were able to receive funds within 48 hours. 

“Dallas College’s students needed immediate support due to an unplanned natural disaster, and that’s exactly what student emergency services aim to do,” says Edquity CEO David Helene. “We’re committed to making it easier for students to receive emergency funds so they can continue learning and making progress toward graduation.”

Preparing campuses for emergencies

Colleges across the country  are embracing the concept of resilient campuses that can prepare for and respond to disasters. Sonoma State University has trained at least three people to work in shifts in a single disaster management role. Chico State trains its social work students to help families create disaster preparedness plans and offers a forest therapy program that trains educators and mental health professionals to help trauma survivors heal in nature. 

Mental health preparedness is a critical way to lay the groundwork for staff and student resilience in the event of a natural disaster. Schools that address staff and student mental health comprehensively now will have a community that is more prepared to deal with adversity. A 2016 American Psychological Association study found that 25-50% of people exposed to an extreme weather disaster are at risk of adverse mental health effects, so those who have tools for coping and self-care will be in the best position to survive the emergency and help others. 

Schools can prepare themselves to support students’ mental health in natural disasters by:

  • Partnering with community organizations to expand resource capacity, including that of additional mental health providers.
  • Providing a safe, supportive environment ; early interventions; and intensive service and supports, depending on students’ specific needs.
  • Training staff in trauma-informed practices.

Moving forward

While school shutdowns due to fires, hurricanes, floods, and other emergencies cost schools money and can negatively impact enrollment, many schools impacted by natural disasters become lifelines for students and surrounding community members. Schools who have experienced natural disasters serve as examples of best practices for supporting students and communities through these events, and colleges and institutions have the opportunity to prepare to be resilient in the face of future emergencies.

Are you an administrator? Get in touch with us at [email protected] to learn more about how you can bring equitable emergency aid to your institution today.

Are you a student? Contact [email protected] or click the blue bubble in the bottom-right corner of edquity.co for assistance.

Subscribe to the Edquity Newsletter

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A natural disaster student support program for online students faces the challenge of COVID‐19

Jennie sanders.

1 Faculty Experience and Academic Services, Western Governors University, Salt Lake City Utah, USA

Bernadette Howlett

Michelle jungbauer, alonna koch, annamaria bliven, jesse velarde, heather saulnier.

This article describes Western Governors University's emergency management student support program in place prior to the pandemic and the challenge to adapt and address the unprecedented needs students faced due to COVID‐19. Included are key lessons learned in addressing the impact of COVID‐19 and evidence‐based learnings in response to the large‐scale student needs during the prolonged pandemic.

INTRODUCTION

Online college students face many of the same demands as traditional students, including time management, family and work obligations, and meeting coursework deadlines. These demands become more challenging in the aftermath of a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, flood, and even in the case of a public health pandemic and civil unrest. In such instances, online college students need extra support to maintain academic progress. Western Governors University (WGU), along with other online universities, has special support programs, policies, and procedures designed to assist students in overwhelming circumstances due to the impact of environmental barriers. Through these compassionate university programs, students in these circumstances receive services to alleviate their stress and minimize environmental barriers to their academic success.

This chapter introduces the WGU Environmental Barrier (EVB) Program as a successful model for student support during a natural disaster in an online environment. Additionally, the authors describe the university‐wide strategies employed by WGU during the COVID‐19 pandemic to identify and address the urgent and wide‐spread needs of our students. The shared learnings from this experience provide important insights into supporting students in crisis as an ever‐evolving online community of care.

STUDENT‐FOCUSED NATURAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Past studies in the domain of higher education and disaster resilience show that college students recovering from natural disasters who receive support are more likely to continue with their coursework and graduate (Cerqua & Di Pietro, 2017 ; Frankenberg et al., 2013 ). Early communication and a compassionate offering of support to students potentially impacted by a natural disaster may improve their overall resilience and sense of connection that are vital to a successful recovery from a disruptive event (Kaniasty & Norris, 2009 ). However, this early support only occurs in colleges and universities that have planned for disasters (Ramey‐Hlinka, 2013 ). Online universities face similar risks that need to be mitigated for students, staff, and faculty that could potentially halt their students’ academic progress (Berger et al., 2018 ).

The use of a proactive process for communication, collaboration, and support following a disaster is an indicator of ongoing academic success (Costa et al., 2015 ). Other research found that students recovering from a major earthquake who received constant communication, staff and faculty collaboration, and equipment assistance were able to continue their coursework and were highly satisfied amidst aftershocks, dislocation, building demolition and remediation, equipment loss or failure, and limited access to resources (Johnston et al., 2016 ). These studies support the need for online universities to explore natural disaster student support models that offer timely and personalized support for students facing these unfortunate barriers to their success. The WGU EVB Program is one such program.

WGU EVB Program overview

WGU established a natural disaster student support plan in 2017 to reduce student barriers to success during natural disasters and to strengthen our online community culture as part of a vibrant community of care. The EVB Program establishes a proactive outreach to students potentially impacted by natural disasters or other major events. Since implementation, the EVB Program has supported an average of 12,000 students annually impacted by an average of 30 major events each year (events with temporary or permanent displacement). This section provides a brief review of the history and phased design of this natural disaster student support program for an online higher education community of care.

Phase 1: The WGU EVB Program pilot

The initial pilot for the WGU EVB Program stemmed from the improved success of students who were proactively assisted by rescheduling online proctored exams in locations impacted by natural disasters in 2015 and 2016. This early effort was driven by our student service teams who often saw online learners’ academic plans derailed when they experienced external impacts and who wanted to do more to assist them. In 2017, WGU developed a university‐wide initiative to identify potentially impactful events and design an individualized student care plan to remove barriers for learners. Support included replacement laptops, webcams, student crisis support information, and financial hardship fund applications.

WGU's ethical commitment to care for each of our students as part of a community of care aligned with the improved student success observed during the EVB pilot. Additionally, consistent with the regulatory guidelines put forth by the United States Department of Education General Order 17‐08, WGU is committed to applying approved support and flexibility to bolster our students' personal and academic well‐being in times of disaster (United States Department of Education Federal Student Aid, 2017 ). These regulatory considerations, along with the WGU community of care culture, informed our clear sense of responsibility for distance learners that drove the initial EVB Program development.

During the initial year of the WGU EVB Program, the EVB team monitored 32 major disasters and reached out to nearly 12,000 students potentially impacted by these events (hurricanes, floods, fires, tornadoes, and other events). Each event was assessed for both severity and student impact, using a 1–4 rubric for rating the event and level of impact (Figure  1 ). Numerous events were rated as a Level 1 event (loss of home); such as Hurricane Irma (335 Level 1 students), the California fires of 2017 (42 Level 1 students), and Hurricane Harvey (252 Level 1 students). Documentation of EVB student records and student support interventions was centralized in our Student Relations Management (SRM) system.

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Event severity and student impact matrix used to determine level of support

Technology facilitated an efficient identification of students living near the event. The pilot team notified both the students and their faculty support team of our concern and of the university resources available to them, including learner interventions for assessment service solutions, technology and equipment support, financial services, academic program support options, and student crisis counseling services. Over 6500 students had individual student care plans to ensure they were able to continue their studies despite the challenges of displacement from their homes. As a result of the care plans, 84% of students remained in their programs, consistent with overall WGU retention rates during the same period.

Given the pilot's success in both retention rates and positive student feedback, university leaders determined that the EVB early notification process and documentation of student impact should be expanded as part of our ongoing student support services. This initial success led to the standardization of the EVB Program as phase two of our university‐wide collaborative effort to reduce student barriers to success during natural disasters and strengthen our online community of care culture.

Phase 2: Standardization of EVB event management and student outreach protocols

Following the pilot completion, the Student Success department designated a service team to continue as a dedicated EVB team to improve and formalize the pilot model for both event management and student outreach protocols. These activities include daily monitoring of natural disasters and weather alert sources for potential natural disasters and highly impactful weather events, careful vetting of the severity of the event, and verification of the impact to residents in the area (Figure  1 ). During this phase, the program expanded EVB outreach to support students living in communities devastated by mass shootings or other public safety events. Lessons learned from the pilot informed EVB event best practices, including use of a dual‐vetting process for all new events to ensure appropriately scoped events are calibrated for a full event outreach. This process includes a review of both the level of severity of the disaster and the confirmed impact on residents. If the level of local impact is loss of homes (Level 1) or evacuations (Level 2), the event is confirmed as a full EVB event (see Figure  1 ).

The EVB Event Management Team used a geo‐mapping tool to improve accurate identification of students living in the event area and a mass mailing platform to send these students templated emails relaying WGU concern for their well‐being and the availability of additional support, if needed. Department and executive leadership teams receive an EVB event summary, including details of the natural disaster or other major event and the number of students potentially impacted by the event.

Each student at WGU is assigned to a Program Mentor who supports them with each step of their academic journey. Mentors are faculty members who are professionals from the student's field of study, assigned to support and advise the student from orientation through graduation. The mentors of potentially impacted students are also notified of the EVB event and the potential impact to their student. This vital student support relationship between the student and their mentor is the heart of the integrated EVB Student Care Plan. Phase 2 developments strengthened the mentor support for their EVB student by implementing the EVB Mentor Response Protocol that is Reach—Assess—Assist:

  • Reach out to student(s) identified as being at risk for having an environmental barrier to their academic success.
  • Assess the actual level of impact of the environmental barrier and identify individual student academic needs related to the event. Details are then documented in the student's EVB record within the SRM.
  • Assist the student with the individual academic needs identified to minimize the impact of the event by offering compassionate support resources for non‐academic needs, including student crisis counseling, local disaster resources, and financial hardship application information if needed.

The mentor documents the student situation in the EVB student record and updates the record from unknown (the default status at time of the record creation), to the confirmed level of personal impact (Levels 1–4, see Figure  1 ). They also initiate an individualized student care plan, which is integrated across the community of care, based on the student's individualized needs during recovery from the natural disaster. In addition, the EVB Care Team has a routine EVB audit process, to ensure student impact details are accurately documented and each highly impacted student's plan of care is in place to support academic progress and offer additional resources when needed. The EVB Working Group, composed of leaders from across all departments, collaborates on learner intervention strategies for our highly impacted students.

A challenge identified during phase two of the program development was raising awareness of EVB student needs and disaster support information across multiple colleges and service departments. The EVB leadership needed colleagues from across the community of care who would champion the awareness of the EVB Program and most importantly, the needs of EVB students. An idea was developed for formally locating faculty and staff across the university who would serve as an EVB Champion.

Phase 3: The EVB Champion Program

The WGU EVB Program team created the Champion Program in February 2020 with a small pilot group of 13 faculty interested in advocating for the adoption and implementation of the EVB Program to support EVB students across the college programs they represent. EVB staff recognized the need to scale and calibrate student support across colleges. They developed the initial vision to build knowledge, collaboration, and enthusiasm around assisting impacted students and to provide development and leadership opportunities for faculty participants. By design, EVB Champions help amplify knowledge and awareness of the EVB Program, update their teams on current EVB events impacting students, and encourage EVB record completion across their college, department, or regional team. They serve as a vital bridge among the small EVB team (housed in the Student Success department) and the faculty and departmental service teams across the university. The timely addition of the EVB Champion pilot, just before the pandemic, proved fortuitous in establishing wide‐scale awareness across faculty departments of integrated student care plan and EVB student needs in response to the COVID‐19 public health event.

The EVB Program response to COVID‐19

The EVB team's monitoring of early COVID‐19 warnings led to addressing the first public health event in the program's history. In early March 2020, the EVB team triggered a new event alert to students and faculty in the Washington State area, with nearly 300 students initially impacted by local school closures. The student impact number increased to over 15,000 students over the next 3 weeks, due to shelter‐in‐place and other community impact factors. The need to set up a WGU COVID‐19 Task Force to meet the escalating and wide‐spread student needs related to the growing pandemic was quickly identified.

WGU leveraged and augmented the EVB Program structure to offer support to over 166,000 students, including 45,977 recently‐graduated alumni, during the initial year of the coronavirus pandemic. Many students faced a direct impact from the pandemic, whether from being a front‐line healthcare worker, facing economic duress, or suffering from the illness or loss of loved ones. Task force work teams were created based on both student support and business continuity concerns and included executive decision makers. WGU was able to quickly monitor the changing student and regulatory landscape (Bogus, 2020 ), restore business continuity, and make decisions to provide timely support to students in compliance with ongoing updates from the Department of Education's general disaster guidelines (Walter, 2020 ). The following section explores this university‐wide response to the impacts of the pandemic on our entire community of care and the lessons learned about how to improve our student support programs once the pandemic is behind us.

The WGU COVID‐19 Task Force and academic solutions

In mid‐March 2020, WGU's President charged a cross‐functional team to develop and deploy strategies, procedures, and policies to enable nimble responses to emerging needs. A daily coordination meeting was established to identify new issues resulting from the rapidly changing ecosystem and define working groups to develop solutions to issues that affected student progress (academic options, financial support, student communication, assessments, field experiences/demonstration teaching, and third‐party exams). This structure enabled rapid identification, communication, and resolution with flexibility becoming a primary operating objective. The goal was to enable learners to continue their education with dynamic support and viable resources.

The strategy developed by the task force included offering alternative assessments, academic alternatives, interpersonal support, and an emergency fund. One of the most sweeping actions taken was granting automated incompletes for courses that any student had not completed by the end of their term for the months of March through May 2020. The WGU term runs for 6 months starting from each student's initial matriculation month, and the incompletes ensured flexibility for course completion and helped students avoid adverse academic effects from systemic disruptions beyond their control. A documentation procedure involving the use of a prescribed set of COVID‐19 hashtags (#) was created to facilitate communication across organizational units, to track student impacts, and to measure the effects on students in terms of first‐ and second‐term retention.

COVID‐19 documentation strategies

The scope and varying level of impact of the pandemic on students required an efficient, large‐scale approach to elevate the needs of our students quickly and inform a timely and helpful support plan. The current EVB Student Record of Impact (Levels 1–4, Figure  1 ) lacked sufficient details of how an event had impacted the individual EVB student, especially at Level 3 (impacted but not displaced). This known lack of additional impact detail became a critical data gap in the face of the dynamic and widespread impact of the pandemic on individual students. An additional documentation and impact assessment tool was needed.

The documentation procedure developed for our COVID‐19 response involved members of the student's community of care (faculty and staff) entering a specified set of hashtags into the student's record to quickly identify, elevate, and track the personal impact of the pandemic and to document the individualized student support strategies applied. The taskforce identified a set of 16 Impact and eight Intervention hashtags. The task force included representation from all the employee groups who would enter or interpret the tags, which ensured each tag was aligned with employees’ training and expectations. The task force defined the final list of Impact tags and published the instructions for employee use to ensure shared understanding of the meaning and use of the tags. Impact hashtags represented student‐reported effects caused by COVID‐19, including #BasicNeeds, #Deployed, #Displaced, #Distress, #EconomicHardship, #EssentialWorker, #FamilyCare, #FamilyDeath, #HouseholdIllness, #Internet, #OLPIssue (online proctoring issue) , #Overtime, #Safety, #StudentIllness, #Tech (technology), and #WFH (working from home).

Intervention hashtags represented a set of academic options that allowed for flexibility with our standard policies and procedures. The intervention tags included #AAgrace (academic activity grace), #CourseDrop , #CourseSwap , #CourseWD (course withdrawal), #FTCA (first term critical action), #IC30 (30‐day incomplete), #IC60 (60‐day incomplete), and #IC90 (90‐day incomplete). It is important to note that WGU's pre‐pandemic policies required full‐time enrollment and satisfactory progress across each 6‐month term. The academic options developed for our pandemic response enabled flexibility regarding these policies to avoid administrative withdrawals and other actions associated with inactivity.

These academic options included approval requirements and follow‐up procedures. For example, Academic Activity Grace applied when a student became inactive for 14 days and reported a COVID‐19 impact. A grace period was allowed for the student to catch up on missing activities or submissions, which was tracked by the student's faculty members and their managers. Course drop, swap, and withdrawal were procedures related to adding/removing courses from the student's enrolled term, which otherwise would not have been permitted. The three options for incompletes allowed 30‐, 60‐, or 90‐days additional time past the end of the term for completion of required work. Many of these academic options were available prior to the pandemic but used only in extraordinary circumstances.

Analysis: COVID‐19 hashtag documentation and student retention rates

WGU performed an analysis of the COVID‐19 hashtag data from the initial year of the pandemic, to determine if students with hashtags had different retention rates than students without hashtags. Approximately 50% of WGU students had at least one hashtag (68,466 students as of April 23, 2021). Results were analyzed to compare retention after the first term (7‐month retention) and second term (13‐month retention). Student outreach and support is offered as part of our standard Program Mentor program. The additional use of the hashtag documentation for CV19 support confirmed that the student had connected with and disclosed to their Program Mentor how they were impacted. The data show that students with any hashtag (regardless of the type or the quantity) had higher retention rates for both 7‐month and 13‐month retention than students who had no hashtag in their records. A chi‐square test for independence was performed using Python version 3.9.1 ( Chi2 Contingency Package ). The differences in retention between students with and without hashtags were statistically significant at alpha < 0.05 (two‐tailed test), as shown in Table  1 (for 7‐month retention) and Table  2 (for 13‐month retention).

Chi‐square test results for 7‐month retention

Abbreviations: UG, Undergrad; GR, Graduate.

Chi‐square test results for 13‐month retention

The results indicate the presence of an annotation in a student record regarding a COVID‐19 effect, which signified the student successfully connected to the personalized support offered by their mentor and was associated with a strong, statistically significant lift in retention for both the first (7‐month) and second (13‐month) terms. The hashtag annotations, in this case, are an analog signal placed in the students’ records to indicate a variety of interventions that were applied for students who were impacted by COVID‐19.

This analysis, in addition to student and staff feedback about the expanded academic options, continues to inform non‐pandemic support across our community of care. For example, several teams are leveraging hashtags to document and study student support initiatives beyond COVID‐19 for agile, timely analysis about interventions. The EVB Level of Impact record has been enhanced to offer documentation of additional impact details for students affected by other natural disasters, modeled after the learnings from the COVID‐19 Impact hashtag data. WGU is adjusting practices and processes to provide the flexibility students found helpful during the pandemic, as well as working toward deeper coordination between the EVB student services team and staff and faculty across the university, to efficiently integrate the various aspects of holistic support to benefit more students.

WGU's EVB natural disaster student support program created procedures, structures, and systems to support students during natural disasters and other significant external events. WGU leveraged this existing infrastructure as the backbone for a rapid‐solution team that developed student‐centric solutions to challenges caused by the COVID‐19 pandemic. Additional academic solutions (including alternative secure assessments, automated and extended incompletes, and flexibility in academic engagement requirements), as well as annotations (hashtags) to enable aggregation and analysis of student impacts and interventions, augmented the established procedures to extend and elucidate the effect of student support during the pandemic. An analysis indicated the presence of an annotation in a student record regarding a COVID‐19 effect was associated with a statistically significant lift in retention. A rapid, individualized, flexible response to students’ needs when major events disrupt their lives may make a significant positive difference in college student retention.

The results of the COVID‐19 response have advanced the use of the annotation (hashtag) approach for surfacing timely signals about student need at WGU. These signals continue to inform flexible, targeted support via the EVB infrastructure and Community of Care to respond quickly to the needs of affected students and help them retain on their educational journey. Being responsive to all the needs of students, not just academic needs, is an essential strategy to increase student success and enable learners to achieve their professional and personal goals.

Biographies

Jennie Sanders is Vice President of Faculty Experience and Academic Services at Western Governors University. Bernadette Howlett is Director of Faculty Operations Research at Western Governors University. Michelle Jungbauer is Senior Manager of Student Support Services at Western Governors University. Alonna Koch is Manager of Student Support Services at Western Governors University.

Bernadette Howlett is Senior Manager of Faculty Experience at Western Governors University.

Michelle Jungbauer is Senior Manager of Student Success (EVB Program) at Western Governors University.

Alonna Koch is Manager of Student Success (EVB Program) at Western Governors University.

AnnaMaria Bliven is Analyst of Evaluation in Authenticity and Integrity Services at Western Governors University.

Jesse Velarde is Senior Manager of Business Transformation Project and Change Management at Western Governors University.

Heather Saulnier is Director of Student Success Operations at Western Governors University.

Sanders, J. , Howlett, B. , Jungbauer, M. , Koch, A. , Bliven, A. M. , Velarde, J. , & Saulnier, H. (2021). A natural disaster student support program for online students faces the challenge of COVID‐19 . New Directions for Student Services , 2021 , 9–17. 10.1002/ss.20401 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

  • Berger, E. , Carroll, M. , Maybery, D. , & Harrison, D. (2018). Disaster impacts on students and staff from a specialist, trauma‐informed Australian school . Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma , 11 ( 4 ), 521–530. 10.1007/s40653-018-0228-6 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Bogus, E. (2020). Teacher preparation and licensure requirements during COVID‐19: Short‐term solutions with long‐term effects . The Evolllution . https://evolllution.com/programming/program_planning/teacher‐preparation‐and‐licensure‐requirements‐during‐covid‐19‐short‐term‐solutions‐with‐long‐term‐effects/
  • Cerqua, A. , & Di Pietro, G. (2017). Natural disasters and university enrollment: Evidence from L'Aquila earthquake . Applied Economics , 49 ( 14 ), 1440–1457. 10.1080/00036846.2016.1218431 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Costa, R. , Hansel, T. C. , Moore, M. , Many, M. , Osofsky, J. , & Osofsky, H. (2015). Teachers and school personnel as first responders following disasters: Survivors and supporters . Journal of Traumatic Stress Disorders & Treatment , 04 ( 04 ). 10.4172/2324-8947.1000146 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Frankenberg, E. , Sikoki, B. , Sumantri, C. , Suriastini, W. , & Thomas, D. (2013). Education, vulnerability, and resilience after a natural disaster . Ecology and Society: A Journal of Integrative Science for Resilience and Sustainability , 18 ( 2 ), 16. 10.5751/ES-05377-180216 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
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It’s Time to Prepare Students for Climate Change Disasters

In an op-ed for the hill , tc doctoral student josh devincenzo calls for practical instruction to help students respond to floods, wildfires and other climate-change related events.

natural disasters project for college

First, there were only fire drills. But as new threats emerged and gripped the United States, like the Cold War and gun violence, schools were forced to integrate new practical trainings to ensure that students could respond in the midst of a crisis. Now, as severe climate events throughout the globe become more frequent and intense, it is time for school leaders to prepare students for the potentially life-threatening effects of climate change, write TC doctoral student Josh DeVincenzo and co-author David Mazzuca in The Hill .

natural disasters project for college

Josh DiVincenzo , Adult Learning & Leadership doctoral student; Project Coordinator/ Instructional Designer at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (Photo: TC Archives)

“Just as fire drills and earthquake drills reinforce the importance of individual decision-making and the implications such decisions have on collective coordination, disaster preparedness needs to be taught with a similar, tangible level of understanding,” writes DeVincenzo, who is in the College’s  Adult Learning & Leadership program, and serves as a project coordinator and instructional designer at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP), based at Columbia University’s Earth Institute . “Teaching the science behind why we have more extreme heat or more intense droughts is not enough. It is vital to understand the human element and the interconnectedness in preparing for disasters.”

Climate disaster curriculum, DeVincenzo and his NCDP colleague outline, could consist of preparing students and their families to have “go bags” in case of emergencies; how to recognize the signs of heat exhaustion; and providing instruction on how to avoid flooded roadways.

“The more such measures can be integrated into K-12 education as common practice, the larger its impact,” writes DeVincenzo, who is also a member of the Doctoral Student Network at TC’s  Center for Sustainable Futures.

Read DeVincenzo and Mazzuca’s full op-ed in The Hill .

Learn more about the work of TC’s Center for Sustainable Futures .

Tags: Environment Climate Change Curriculum K-12 Education Sustainability

Published Wednesday, Aug 4, 2021

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Resources for Communities Following Natural Disasters

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  • October 7, 2022
  • Headlines , News

Resources for communities following natural disasters

Recent natural disasters have significantly impacted communities and their education institutions. Since 2017, there have been over 300 presidentially declared major disasters across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Outlying Areas. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) closely follows the impacts of natural disasters on students, educators, staff, families, and others. Schools are a critical aspect of whole community recovery and provide education, nutrition, physical fitness, mental health counseling, and other resources to students and their families during day-to-day operations. When schools close after a natural disaster, it is critical that these resources remain available to the community and that schools are reopened and operating as soon as possible. In 2018, to better assist schools in dealing with impacts of natural disasters, ED’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education formed a Disaster Recovery Unit (DRU) with the goal of increasing resources dedicated to K-12 schools disaster recovery efforts. ED’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) office and Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) offer support to postsecondary schools.

ED has curated resources, including those developed by other federal agencies and organizations, for restoring the teaching and learning environment at Natural Disaster Resources | U.S. Department of Education . Below are some examples of helpful resources.

ED resources for K-12 communities after natural disasters:

  • Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) Technical Assistance: OESE offers technical assistance across grant programs to support grantees and address K-12 educational needs, including needs associated with restarting operations, re-enrolling students, and reopening public or non-public elementary and secondary schools after a natural disaster. Information and resources, organized by topical areas, include websites, webinars, guidance documents, practice briefs, and tools created by OESE, OESE’s technical assistance centers, and other partners across ED and government to support K-12 education programs.
  • The National Center for Homeless Education: Operates ED’s technical assistance and information center for the federal Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program.
  • Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center | Disaster Planning and Trauma Response Page: Provides resources and links from federal agencies and national organizations to help families and children, including those with disabilities, cope with disasters.
  • The Center for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS): Developed a guide that describes the use of a multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) framework to support students, families, and educators during the transitions back to school during and following a crisis in the manner that prioritizes their health and safety, social and emotional needs, and behavioral and academic growth. While this guide is geared toward returning to school after a pandemic, it is applicable to all natural disasters. See https://www.pbis.org/resource/returning-to-school-during-and-after-crisis .
  • Dr. Brandi Simonsen, Co-Director of the PBIS Center, gives a video tour of all the resources and strategies available to educators as they return to school after the pandemic (or after any crisis) at https://www.pbis.org/video/returning-to-school-resources-tour .

ED resources for higher education communities after natural disasters:

  • Federal Student Aid (FSA) provides outreach and support to domestic and foreign Title IV-eligible institutions and school community stakeholders in the wake of and in response to natural disasters ranging from tornadoes, wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. FSA collaborates across ED to reach out to the leadership of schools in impacted regions and offer key reminders and information about the special resources available to institutions affected by disasters. Current guidance from Federal Student Aid on disaster impacted areas for participating Title IV institutions can continue to be found on the Knowledge Center at https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/topics/natural-disaster-information
  • Office of Postsecondary Education provides technical assistance and support to grantees that need to adjust activities and budgets as a result of natural disasters. Contact information for staff regarding grants can be found at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/contacts.html .
  • The Emergency Response Unit within the Office of Postsecondary Education manages the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). HEERF grants must be used to prevent, prepare for, or respond to the pandemic. Institutions may use HEERF to provide emergency financial aid grants directly to students, which may be used for any component of their cost of attendance or for emergency costs that arise, including housing and food. Students receipt of HEERF emergency financial aid grants should be prioritized based on exceptional need, which may include needs that have arisen as a result of the recent hurricanes. Institutions should carefully document how they determine exceptional need. Institutions cannot direct or control what students use their emergency financial aid grants on as funds must be provided directly to students. See https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/arpfaq.pdf . For additional questions, contact the Emergency Response Unit at [email protected] .

ED resources for pre-K through higher education after natural disasters:

  • Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance (TA) Center: Supports education agencies, with their community partners, manage safety, security, and emergency management programs. The REMS TA Center helps to build the preparedness capacity (including prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery efforts) of schools, school districts, institutions of higher education, and their community partners at the local, state, and federal levels. REMS TA Center also serves as the primary source of information dissemination for schools, districts, and IHEs for emergencies.
  • Project School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV): The program provides short-term immediate funding for districts and IHEs that have experienced a violent or traumatic incident to assist in restoring a safe environment conducive to learning. At the discretion of the Secretary of Education, funding amounts and project periods may be identified (subject to the availability of appropriations) to reflect the scope of the incident and potential recovery needs. The application process is intended not to be burdensome. Funding for Project SERV awards typically range from $50,000 to $150,000.

Other resources from federal agencies and national organizations after natural disasters:

  • Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): Supports a Disaster Distress Helpline ( Spanish ) that provides crisis counseling. Call or text 1-800-985-5990 (for Spanish, press “2”) to be connected to a trained counselor.
  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Caring for Children in a Disaster : Offers simple steps through a collection of resources to protect children in emergency situations and help meet their needs during and after a disaster.
  • National Child Traumatic Stress Network Hurricane Resources
  • National Child Traumatic Stress Network Wildfire Resources
  • National Child Traumatic Stress Network Flood Resources
  • National Child Traumatic Stress Network Tornado Resources
  • The NCTSN also has resources for responders on Psychological First Aid (PFA; En Español ). PFA is an early intervention to support children, adolescents, adults, and families impacted by these types of events. The PFA Wallet Card ( En Español ) provides a quick reminder of the core actions. The PFA online training ( En Español ) course is also available on the NCTSN Learning Center.
  • For community and mental health providers who plan to continue working with affected communities long-term, review Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR; En Español ) and take the SPR Online course ( En Español ).

Please note: These links represent a few examples of the numerous reference materials currently available to the public. The inclusion of resources should not be construed or interpreted as an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any private organization or business listed herein.

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October 6, 2022

Purdue Extension seeks to build community resilience after a natural disaster

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue Extension is continuing its role serving as an administrative lead for the Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) and expanding disaster education response throughout America. EDEN, a multistate collaboration of land-grant Extension Services, including 1862, 1890, 1994, Hispanic-serving institutions and Sea Grant programs, aims to reduce the impact of disasters through research-based education.

Since 2003, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has provided EDEN with funding to support coordination, communications and resource development. Principal investigator Jason Henderson, director of Purdue Extension and senior associate dean of the  Purdue College of Agriculture , and co-principal investigators Michael Wilcox, program leader of Purdue Extension’s Community Development Program , and Abby Lillpop, National EDEN project coordinator, recently received additional funding to advance agrosecurity and community resilience through Extension program innovations.

As part of its national coordination of EDEN, Purdue Extension has outlined new goals to ensure its effectiveness and long-term success. The first goal is to protect U.S. agriculture and food systems during all phases of disasters by expanding Cooperative Extension’s educational resources and programming. Secondly, Purdue plans to expand opportunities for Extension to engage and improve the quality of life in underserved communities by furthering the capacity of the current 1890 Extension system to deliver disaster programming.

“Rural communities and agriculture are disproportionately vulnerable when it comes to natural disasters as damage is often not covered by risk-management agencies. Through partnerships at the local level, EDEN is vital in helping communities recover when disaster strikes,” Henderson said.

Purdue Extension has invested in developing Community Organizations Active in Disasters (COAD) to prepare communities to rapidly respond to weather-related disasters, resulting in coverage of nearly 75 percent of Indiana’s 92 counties. In partnership with the University of Illinois, University of Nebraska, University of Missouri and Washington State University, EDEN is prioritizing developing COADs across the nation to partner with local emergency management and nonprofits.

“Since responding to the catastrophic Mississippi and Missouri river floods in 1993 to launching educational programming to protect our nation’s food supply after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Purdue Extension has been a driving force for the evolution of EDEN. Our capacity and strength to serve communities efficiently and rapidly in times of need is critical for addressing agrosecurity challenges,” Lillpop said.

Writer : Abby Leeds, [email protected]  

Source : Abby Lillpop, [email protected]

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Carolyn Jones

November 14, 2017.

natural disasters project for college

The fires may be out in the Wine Country, but they’re still a daily topic in many California classrooms.

At Design Tech High , a charter school in Burlingame that’s affiliated with Oracle, students are analyzing the science behind the Tubbs Fire that raged through Sonoma County in October and creating blueprints for how the destroyed neighborhoods can rebuild in a way that could minimize impacts from the next fire.

The crash course in sustainability is an example of how, amidst the devastation and human suffering, teachers are using wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters to further students’ understanding of science, history and social studies.

“Drought, famine, fire, war — students get it. They see the connection between what’s on the news and these larger environmental issues,” said Andra Yeghoian, environmental education coordinator for the San Mateo County Office of Education , who teaches environmental science and trains teachers at Design Tech and other public schools in San Mateo County.

“Youth today can be traumatized by what they see happening in the world,” she said. “It’s our job as educators to equip them with the knowledge that they can not only survive, but bring forward a sustainable future. It’s not all doom and gloom.”

Yeghoian’s students at Design Tech High are designing 3-D neighborhood models where all the buildings have rainwater catchment systems, trees and shrubs are native and planted away from structures, major streets skirt the perimeter so the inside streets are safer for pedestrians and bicycling and the buildings are all energy-efficient — general eco-friendly improvements that are good for the environment overall and can reduce the risk and intensity of wildfire.

California’s State Board of Education adopted a K-12 environmental education curriculum in 2010, and environmental principles are part of the state’s new science standards as well as the history and social science standards. For younger grades, that means studying composting, recycling, wildlife habitats and other ways people can protect the environment. High school students study topics like sea-level rise, agribusiness and other more complex subjects.

The state’s new science standards, called the Next Generation Science Standards, emphasize hands-on science projects and critical thinking over rote memorization. Some teachers said that current natural disasters offer a perfect way to combine science lessons with real-life events, which students might be following on the news or are curious about anyway.

And while natural disasters — and the environmental standards themselves — aren’t always related to climate change, human-caused environmental shifts are hard to ignore, Yeghoian said.

“For people who experience these events, it can be incredibly traumatic,” she said. “But witnessing these events — these days, on a regular basis — can also be stressful. We tell students, yes, these disasters are a fact of life. And yes, it’s going to get worse. But here’s what we can do about it. We can become more resilient as a society.”

In the Lake Tahoe area, where the temperature can swing 50 degrees in one day, elementary science teacher Laurie Scheibner is surrounded by natural disaster, extreme weather and climate change teaching opportunities, she said. In her lessons in Tahoe-Truckee Unified classrooms, where she teaches science at several elementary schools, students measure the snowpack and compare it to historical data, check the temperature of Lake Tahoe over time, even monitor bear activity to gauge the impact of humans on ursine habits.

When the Oroville Dam spillway threatened to collapse during last winter’s heavy rains, Scheibner had her students study rivers, flooding and how a home could be engineered to protect from deluges.

“Studying real events like that takes the lesson out of the textbook,” she said. “It’s not abstract. It’s part of their own lives, so there’s a reason for studying it. For students who aren’t usually into science, this makes them interested. And for kids who are already curious, it gives them a chance to dive deeper.”

“After all,” she said, “human nature loves calamity. As long as it’s not your calamity.”

Natural disasters aren’t just fodder for science lessons. California’s history-social science standards also include environmental principles and plenty of opportunities for teachers to look at the long-range implications of droughts, floods, fires, hurricanes and other phenomena, said Shelley Brooks, who works on the California History Social Science Project at UC Davis, which promotes K-12 history and social science education.

Natural disasters often change the course of history, she said. For example, ancient civilizations arose along rivers, but when those rivers flooded people had to relocate or attempt to control the river banks and water flow.

In arid, grassy parts of California, fire has had a major impact on human settlements for millennia, she said. Native Americans used controlled burns to manage vegetation and reduce the risk of major fires, and humans today are still grappling with the best way to balance growth with the landscape’s natural fire cycle, she said.

“Fire has always been with us and it always will be,” she said. “I would hope that something like the North Bay fires would spark curiosity among students about how these events come about, what humans’ role is, and what the lasting impact will be. You’d hope it would ignite a desire for a deeper understanding beyond the flash-in-the-pan news coverage.”

The Dust Bowl is another example of how extreme weather changed the course of history, she said. Drought, combined with monocultural farming, led to severe dust storms that forced hundreds of thousands of people to relocate. Many moved to California, where they endured poverty and discrimination and left a major impact on the state culture.

By studying current natural disasters, students can look for parallels in history and see what the long-range impacts were and how humans’ decisions and responses could have been different, she said.

“Our goal is for students to understand the ever-evolving relationship between people and the natural world,” Brooks said. “It’s not going away. These students will someday be making the decisions that guide our policies, whether we’ll become more susceptible or less susceptible to climate change. We want them to tackle it responsibly.”

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How College Students Can Get Natural Disaster Assistance

Anna Helhoski

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Student loan scams on the rise: How to protect yourself

If you’re caught in a natural disaster, figuring out how to pay tuition or make your next student loan payment probably isn’t top of mind. But if your family’s financial situation changes as the result of an emergency, you may be eligible for additional financial aid or a break in student loan payments.

» MORE: NerdWallet's guide to recovering from a disaster

"You don't want to recover from that situation only to find your credit is shot because you don't make your loan payment," says Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit that offers free student loan advice.

Here’s how you can get natural disaster assistance as a college student.

What current students can do

If you are currently in college and have new financial need due to a natural disaster, first contact your school’s financial aid office. You may be eligible for a reassessment of your financial aid.

“Schools always have the use of what’s called professional judgment, handled on a case-by-case basis,” Mayotte says.

» MORE: Emergency financial aid for college students: What are your options?

Your school also may have its own emergency financial aid — tuition waivers, short-term loans or emergency grants — to help you stay in school during a crisis, such as a natural disaster, family emergency or medical situation. You’ll likely need to turn in an application and other documentation to prove why you need the aid.

Any federal assistance you or your family receives as a result of a natural disaster won’t count as additional income that would negatively affect your existing aid. If you have questions about how your federal student aid may be affected in a situation like this, call 800-4FEDAID.

» MORE: College survival guide for your money

What federal loan borrowers in repayment can do

In response to natural disasters, the U.S. Department of Education typically advises federal student loan servicers to offer flexibility in loan payments to borrowers who are affected.

Right now federal student loan borrowers are in the midst of an automatic payment pause through the end of the year. You don't have to do anything to receive this payment pause.

When the auto forbearance ends, you can contact your servicer about getting placed into an administrative forbearance. You can request if you’re a borrower making student loan payments, aren’t in default , and have an account address in a federally declared disaster area, Mayotte says. That means you won’t have to make loan payments for up to three months. However, interest will still be charged during this time, so it’s best to make interest-only payments if you can. This won’t affect your forbearance status.

» MORE: Deferment and forbearance: How to pause student loans

Borrowers who have their accounts placed in administrative forbearance should receive a letter saying so; those who want to opt out will need to reply to their lender or servicer once they receive the letter. To request forbearance if your loan is not automatically placed on hold or is in default, or if you cannot receive your mail, contact your lender or servicer.

For up-to-date disaster help information from the U.S. Department of Education, visit its website .

What private loan borrowers can do

Private loan borrowers may have a tougher time postponing payments after a natural disaster, as private loans tend to offer fewer protections than federal loans.

» MORE: How to use student loans for living expenses

However, Mayotte says private lenders often offer forbearance for up to three months for financial difficulties. Contact your private lender or servicer to see what options are available.

On a similar note...

natural disasters project for college

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A New Massive Open Online Course on Natural Disasters

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MOOC participants all over the world learn about natural disasters.

Since 2000, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, has offered a course with the simple title of “Natural Disasters.” The course, which teaches students the scientific principles underpinning hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, and more, has proven quite popular among the students; attendance has grown from about 50 to more than 600.

But that number pales in comparison to the 12,345 students who enrolled in this course after McGill University selected “Natural Disasters” as one of a small number of courses to develop into a high-quality massive open online course (MOOC) in 2013.

We wanted to reach people in remote regions and developing countries who would not otherwise have been able to participate in such a course.

MOOCs have gained popularity since 2012 . These courses allow anybody anywhere access to learning opportunities that were formerly restricted to small numbers. MOOCs typically attract thousands of students, at little or no cost to the students.

We planned and designed the original course as well as the MOOC. For the MOOC, we kept a set of objectives in mind. First and foremost, we wanted to reach out to the largest number of people possible, from all regions of the world, who were interested or involved in some aspect of natural hazards and natural disasters. In particular, we wanted to reach people in remote regions and developing countries who would not otherwise have been able to participate in such a course.

We believe that by providing these participants with information and educational tools, at no cost to them, they can better understand how, where, and why natural disasters occur. Because better understanding can lead to empowerment and change, the MOOC participants could use this knowledge to help reduce and mitigate the effects and consequences of natural disasters in their own communities.

Assembling the MOOC

Our vision was a MOOC that would be highly dynamic for the students. That is, we wanted to make sure that the professors’ lectures would be only one of several elements in the course. The diverse range of activities included student polls, discussions, and short assessments that tested the students’ comprehension. The assessments included multiple choice questions, calculations, and geographic system pattern recognition: elements that actively engaged students in their learning.

This approach required a team of instructors and support staff with different and complementary skills. The two professors were the visual interface for the students: in essence, they were the “front end” of the course. The design team comprised a coordinator, an active learning specialist, a videographer, a programmer, and a group of student assistants who had taken the McGill course and were familiar with its content.

The course components contained lectures, student activities (including three hands-on lab experiments), demonstrations by the professors, assignments, case studies by the students, and two multiple-choice exams.

MOOC Content

The course covered hurricanes, tornadoes, El Niño, ice storms, avalanches, landslides, earthquakes, and volcanoes.

The course covered a range of topics, including hurricanes, tornadoes, El Niño, ice storms, avalanches, landslides, earthquakes, and volcanoes. We synthesized many course topics with a series of lectures on climate change (alternatively, global warming) and its consequences. Practical demonstrations embedded within the lectures illustrated the principles behind each particular phenomenon. Here we drew on our experience doing live demonstrations for the on-site students in the McGill course. For example, we simulated a volcanic “eruption” using diet cola and Mentos candy (see video below).

YouTube video

We built social science into each topic. For volcanoes, we showed the dual importance of hazard maps and the need for people to communicate and take action when necessary to stay out of harm’s way. As an illustration, we discussed the disastrous 1985 eruption of Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz volcano . Because of poor communication, people failed to flee from a volcanic mudslide, even though hazard maps were available showing safe and unsafe areas. For earthquakes, we examined the role that efficient communications, such as rapid text messaging , could play in public safety efforts.

We also examined climate change as a moral issue , comparing and contrasting greenhouse gas contributions and impacts between developed and developing countries. Finally, we discussed urban growth and human activities, looking at intelligent and not so intelligent choices people make in terms of where they live and how they build.

For each topic, students were required to complete an assignment that tested their knowledge and allowed them to apply the principles they’d just learned. Students also completed two multiple-choice exams during the course, one halfway through and another at the end. In addition, we designed a “mini case study” where students chose a topic or event that interested them, researched the topic, wrote up the essentials in roughly a page, and then submitted their written product to the scrutiny of three of their peers.

In addition, students collaborated to create interactive global hazard maps using a third-party tool called ZeeMaps (Figure 1).

MOOC students mapped and described their personal experiences with natural disasters.

Students also competed in Stop Disasters! , an online disaster simulation game from International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, an effort organized by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (Figure 2). A display on the MOOC interface gave high scores and invited students to challenge and beat their student assistants.

Flood preparation scenario from the computer simulation game Stop Disasters!

Launching the MOOC

The initial offering of the course ran from late May to late August 2014, with 12,345 students from 178 countries enrolled. We located these online students using their IP addresses and found that at registration, the four countries with the most students were the United States (24%), India (11%), Canada (5%), and the United Kingdom (4%; Figure 3). The median age of participants was 29, with 34% aged 25 years or younger, 37% aged 26–40, and 20% aged 41 years or older (10% of participants did not indicate their age).

Global distribution of 2014 course participants.

We offered our course through edX , a nonprofit entity that offers MOOCs from a large number of universities and other organizations. The course layout included a detailed syllabus, the courseware containing the material for the different topics, a page where students could view their results and progress, and a help section including frequently asked questions.

Fostering Discussion

In addition to instructional content, the course layout also contained a discussion board for students and student assistants and “screenside chats,” in which the professors could answer students’ questions and address any events or topical points of interest, including natural hazards or natural disasters currently in progress.

Two student assistants were tasked with addressing the many questions and concerns raised by the students as quickly and efficiently as possible. Over the span of the course, each student assistant contributed some 500 comments on the discussion forum. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students regarding this thorough and reliable discussion monitoring system.

Online gaming appears to be an increasingly valuable learning resource in today’s connected society.

In addition, many students had an exceptional understanding of the course material, enabling them to respond to questions as well. When a student correctly responded to a question, staff endorsed the post and added any relevant additional information, thus indicating to all students that the response was correct.

Student participation in the Stop Disasters! game was especially impressive; several students managed to surpass the high scores of the assistants, and they gave each other tips and tricks on how to improve their game score. Online gaming appears to be an increasingly valuable learning resource in today’s connected society [see, e.g., Mani et al. , 2016].

As part of their final project in the course, students shared their mini case studies, on a topic of their choice, with their peers on the discussion forum. The assistants read most of these case studies and found that generally, the quality of the research performed far exceeded expectations.

A New Way to Learn

We offered the MOOC again in 2015 and 2016. There are plans to license the course in China, and we are also thinking about developing specialized natural disasters MOOCs that would address, for example, the polar regions or the tropics.

No person on Earth is immune from the risk of natural disasters.

No person on Earth is immune from the risk of natural disasters. Our course can make an important contribution to understanding and mitigating this risk. The course is accessible to a broad range of learners, from high school students to adults and seniors, and it can be used in developed and developing countries alike. The only requirements are an internet connection and a passion for learning. We are excited about future developments in this field.

Acknowledgments

We are most grateful to Anthony Masi, former provost at McGill and leader of the McGillX initiative, who provided financial support and much encouragement for this project.

Mani, L., P. D. Cole, and I. Stewart (2016), Using video games for volcanic hazard education and communication: An assessment of the method and preliminary results, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 16 , 1673–1689, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-1673-2016 .

Author Information

John Stix (email: [email protected] ), Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; John Gyakum, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada; and Karolane Caissy, Angela Guadagno, Alexander Steeves-Fuentes, Wei Wei Yan, Frank Roop, Pierre-André Vungoc, Claire Walker, Adam Finkelstein, and Laura Winer, McGill Teaching and Learning Services, Montreal, QC, Canada

Stix, J.,Gyakum, J.,Caissy, K.,Guadagno, A.,Steeves-Fuentes, A.,Yan, W. W.,Roop, F.,Vungoc, P.-A.,Walker, C.,Finkelstein, A., and Winer, L. (2018), A new massive open online course on natural disasters, Eos, 99 , https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EO091699 . Published on 01 February 2018.

Text © 2018. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

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Disaster Impacts on College Students: Life Trajectories at Stake

Kyle Breen is a postdoctoral research associate appointed in the School of Social Work at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He received his PhD in sociology from Louisiana State University in 2022. Breen's research centers on the impacts of hazards, disasters, and environmental injustice on historically marginalized groups. Additionally, his research focuses on how environmental hazards affect educational processes and outcomes.

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Michelle Meyer is the director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center and an associate professor in the Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning Department at Texas A&M University. She received her PhD in sociology at Colorado State University. She uses the lens of social capital and collective efficacy to theoretically understand how relationships between individuals and between governmental and nongovernmental organizations generate or hinder disaster risk and recovery. Hence, her interests have led her to research expansively on volunteer organizations, volunteerism, and philanthropy in disaster. 

Breen, K. & Meyer, M. A. (2023). Disaster Impacts on College Students: Life Trajectories at Stake. Research Counts, 5 (SC4). Special Collection on the Disaster Cycle. Boulder, CO: Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder. https://hazards.colorado.edu/news/research/disaster-impacts-on-college-students-life-trajectories-at-stake

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Natural Disasters (Gen Ed 1098)

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Poster for Gen Ed 1098 - Natural Disasters. Image is a satellite photograph of a hurricane. Text includes course time (Tuesday & Thursday, 10:30-1145am) and location (Haller Hall, Geology Museum).

From Mexico to India, San Francisco to Tokyo, natural disasters have shaped both the surface of our planet and the development of civilizations. These catastrophes claim thousands of lives and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage each year, and the impact of natural disasters is only increasing as a result of human population growth and urbanization. This course uses the methods and skills associated with earth science to help you to develop an understanding of both the causes and impacts of these events.  Readings will be assigned from the textbook Natural Disasters by Patrick Abbott (11th edition), to deliver the scientific content - recorded lectures will be available throughout the course, and live lectures and discussion sessions will be held each week to address any difficulties with the material, to facilitate discussion, and to provide an opportunity for interacting with fellow students and the teaching staff. By the end of this course, you will be able to understand the ways in which societies can systematically anticipate and prepare for the kinds of natural disasters which many people have come to assume are inevitable.

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Students investigated the topic of Natural Disasters through two lenses: Objective (science and action) and Subjective (human experience).

Using background knowledge skills (obtained from peer-teach mini-lessons as well as teacher instruction) from environmental science and civics concepts, students ultimately were asked to participate in a debate around our driving question. Throughout the process of the project, students used a project notebook to document their learning from current events, guest speakers, art and spanish connections, and our Natural Disaster Scenario.

natural disasters project for college

Students applied environmental science skills including (but not limited to) principles of natural disasters, scales of magnitude in which disasters are measured, and monitoring of disasters. Students also utilized civics skills such as governmental hierarchy, government departments, and decision making tactics (i.e.triage).

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Deep Learning Keras and TensorFlow Tutorials

Detecting Natural Disasters with Keras and Deep Learning

by Adrian Rosebrock on November 11, 2019

natural disasters project for college

In this tutorial, you will learn how to automatically detect natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, wildfires, cyclones/hurricanes) with up to 95% accuracy using Keras, Computer Vision, and Deep Learning.

I remember the first time I ever experienced a natural disaster — I was just a kid in kindergarten, no more than 6-7 years old.

We were outside for recess, playing on the jungle gym, running around like the wild animals that young children are.

Rain was in the forecast. It was cloudy. And very humid.

My mother had given me a coat to wear outside, but I was hot and uncomfortable — the humidity made the cotton/polyester blend stick to my skin. The coat, just like the air around me, was suffocating.

All of a sudden the sky changed from “normal rain clouds” to an ominous green.

The recess monitor reached into her pocket, grabbed her whistle, and blew it, indicating it was time for us to settle our wild animal antics and come inside for schooling.

After recess we would typically sit in a circle around the teacher’s desk for show-and-tell.

But not this time.

We were immediately rushed into the hallway and were told to cover our heads with our hands — a tornado had just touched down near our school.

Just the thought of a tornado is enough to scare a kid.

But to actually experience one?

That’s something else entirely.

The wind picked up dramatically, an angry tempest howling and berating our school with tree branches, rocks, and whatever loose debris was not tied down.

The entire ordeal couldn’t have lasted more than 5-10 minutes — but it felt like a terrifying eternity.

It turned out that we were safe the entire time. After the tornado had touched down it started carving a path through the cornfields away from our school, not toward it.

We were lucky.

It’s interesting how experiences as a young kid, especially the ones that scare you, shape you and mold you after you grow up.

A few days after the event my mom took me to the local library. I picked out every book on tornados and hurricanes that I could find. Even though I only had a basic reading level at the time, I devoured them, studying the pictures intently until I could recreate them in my mind — imagining what it would be like to be inside one of those storms.

Later, in graduate school, I experienced the historic June 29th, 2012 derecho that delivered 60+ MPH sustained winds and gusts of over 100 MPH, knocking down power lines and toppling large trees.

That storm killed 29 people, injured hundreds of others, and caused loss of electricity and power in parts of the United States east coast for over 6 days , an unprecedented amount of time in the modern-day United States.

Natural disasters cannot be prevented — but they can be detected , giving people precious time to get to safety.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how we can use Computer Vision and Deep Learning to help detect natural disasters.

To learn how to detect natural disasters with Keras, Computer Vision, and Deep Learning, just keep reading!

natural disasters project for college

Looking for the source code to this post?

In the first part of this tutorial, we’ll discuss how computer vision and deep learning algorithms can be used to automatically detect natural disasters in images and video streams.

From there we’ll review our natural disaster dataset which consists of four classes:

  • Cyclone/hurricane

We’ll then design a set of experiments that will:

  • Help us fine-tune VGG16 (pre-trained on ImageNet) on our dataset.
  • Find optimal learning rates.
  • Train our model and obtain > 95% accuracy!

Let’s get started!

How can computer vision and deep learning detect natural disasters?

natural disasters project for college

Natural disasters cannot be prevented — but they can be detected.

All around the world we use sensors to monitor for natural disasters:

  • Seismic sensors (seismometers) and vibration sensors (seismoscopes) are used to monitor for earthquakes (and downstream tsunamis).
  • Radar maps are used to detect the signature “hook echo” of a tornado (i.e., a hook that extends from the radar echo).
  • Flood sensors are used to measure moisture levels while water level sensors monitor the height of water along a river, stream, etc.
  • Wildfire sensors are still in their infancy but hopefully will be able to detect trace amounts of smoke and fire.

Each of these sensors is highly specialized to the task at hand — detect a natural disaster early, alert people, and allow them to get to safety.

Using computer vision we can augment existing sensors, thereby increasing the accuracy of natural disaster detectors, and most importantly, allow people to take precautions, stay safe, and prevent/reduce the number of deaths and injuries that happen due to these disasters.

Our natural disasters image dataset

natural disasters project for college

The dataset we are using here today was curated by PyImageSearch reader, Gautam Kumar .

Gautam used Google Images to gather a total of 4,428 images belonging to four separate classes:

  • Cyclone/Hurricane: 928 images
  • Earthquake: 1,350
  • Flood: 1,073
  • Wildfire: 1,077

He then trained a Convolutional Neural Network to recognize each of the natural disaster cases.

Gautam shared his work on his LinkedIn profile, gathering the attention of many deep learning practitioners (myself included). I asked him if he would be willing to (1) share his dataset with the PyImageSearch community and (2) allow me to write a tutorial using the dataset. Gautam agreed, and here we are today!

I again want to give a big, heartfelt thank you to Gautam for his hard work and contribution — be sure to thank him if you have the chance!

Downloading the natural disasters dataset

natural disasters project for college

You can use this link to download the original natural disasters dataset via Google Drive.

After you download the archive you should unzip it and inspect the contents:

Here you can see that each of the natural disasters has its own directory with examples of each class residing inside its respective parent directory.

Project structure

Using the tree command, let’s review today’s project available via the “Downloads” section of this tutorial:

Our project contains:

  • The natural disaster dataset. Refer to the previous two sections.
  • An output/ directory where our model and plots will be stored. The results from my experiment are included.
  • Our pyimagesearch module containing our Cyclical Learning Rate Keras callback, a configuration file, and Keras Learning Rate Finder .
  • A selection of videos/ for testing the video classification prediction script.
  • Our training script, train.py . This script will perform fine-tuning on a VGG16 model pre-trained on the ImageNet dataset.
  • Our video classification prediction script, predict.py , which performs a rolling average prediction to classify the video in real-time.

Our configuration file

Our project is going to span multiple Python files, so to keep our code tidy and organized (and ensure that we don’t have a multitude of command line arguments), let’s instead create a configuration file to store all important paths and variables.

Open up the config.py file inside the pyimagesearch module and insert the following code:

The os module import allows us to build OS-agnostic paths directly in this config file ( Line 2 ).

Line 6 specifies the root path to our natural disaster dataset.

Line 7 provides the names of class labels (i.e. the names of the subdirectories in the dataset).

Let’s define our dataset splits:

Lines 13-15 house our training, testing, and validation split sizes. Take note that the validation split is 10% of the training split (not 10% of all the data).

Next, we’ll define our training parameters:

Lines 19 and 20 contain the minimum and maximum learning rate for Cyclical Learning Rates (CLR).We’ll learn how to set these learning rate values in the “Finding our initial learning rate” section below.

Lines 21-24 define the batch size, step size, CLR method, and the number of training epochs.

From there we’ll define the output paths:

Lines 27-33 define the following output paths:

  • Serialized model after training
  • Learning rate finder plot
  • Training history plot

Implementing our training script with Keras

Our training procedure will consist of two steps:

  • Step #1: Use our learning rate finder to find optimal learning rates to fine-tune our VGG16 CNN on our dataset.
  • Step #2: Use our optimal learning rates in conjunction with Cyclical Learning Rates (CLR) to obtain a high accuracy model.

Our train.py file will handle both of these steps.

Go ahead and open up train.py in your favorite code editor and insert the following code:

Lines 2-27 import necessary packages including:

  • matplotlib : For plotting (using the "Agg" backend so plot images can be saved to disk).
  • tensorflow : Imports including our VGG16 CNN, data augmentation, layer types, and SGD optimizer.
  • scikit-learn : Imports including a label binarizer, dataset splitting function, and an evaluation reporting tool.
  • LearningRateFinder : Our Keras Learning Rate Finder class.
  • CyclicLR : A Keras callback that oscillates learning rates, known as Cyclical Learning Rates . CLRs lead to faster convergence and typically require fewer experiments for hyperparameter updates.
  • config : The custom configuration settings we reviewed in the previous section.
  • paths : Includes a function for listing the image paths in a directory tree.
  • cv2 : OpenCV for preprocessing and display.

Let’s parse command line arguments and grab our image paths:

Recall that most of our settings are in config.py . There is one exception. The --lr-find command line argument tells our script whether or not to find the optimal learning rate ( Lines 30-33 ).

Line 38 grabs paths to all images in our dataset.

We then initialize two synchronized lists to hold our image data and labels ( Lines 39 and 40 ).

Let’s populate the data and labels lists now:

Lines 43-55 loop over imagePaths , while:

  • Extracting the class label from the path ( Line 45 ).
  • Loading and preprocessing the image ( Lines 49-51 ). Images are converted to RGB channel ordering and resized to 224×224 for VGG16.
  • Adding the preprocessed image to the data list ( Line 54 ).
  • Adding the label to the labels list ( Lines 55 ).

Line 59 performs a final preprocessing step by converting the data to a "float32" datatype NumPy array.

Similarly, Line 60 converts labels to an array so that Lines 63 and 64 can perform one-hot encoding.

From here, we’ll partition our data and set up data augmentation:

Lines 67-72 construct training, testing, and validation splits.

Lines 75-82 instantiate our data augmentation object. Read more about data augmentation in my previous posts as well as in the Practitioner Bundle of Deep Learning for Computer Vision with Python .

At this point we’ll set up our VGG16 model for fine-tuning :

Lines 86 and 87 load VGG16 using pre-trained ImageNet weights (but without the fully-connected layer head).

Lines 91-95 create a new fully-connected layer head followed by Line 99 which adds the new FC layer to the body of VGG16.

Lines 103 and 104 mark the body of VGG16 as not trainable — we will be training (i.e. fine-tuning) only the FC layer head.

Lines 109-111 then compile our model with the Stochastic Gradient Descent ( SGD ) optimizer and our specified minimum learning rate.

The first time you run the script, you should set the --lr-find command line argument to use the Keras Learning Rate Finder to determine the optimal learning rate. Let’s see how that works:

Line 115 checks to see if we should attempt to find optimal learning rates. Assuming so, we:

  • Initialize LearningRateFinder ( Line 119 ).
  • Start training with a 1e-10 learning rate and exponentially increase it until we hit 1e+1 ( Lines 120-125 ).
  • Plot the loss vs. learning rate and save the resulting figure ( Lines 129 and 130 ).
  • Gracefully exit the script after printing a message instructing the user to inspect the learning rate finder plot ( Lines 135-137 ).

After this code executes we now need to:

  • Step #1: Review the generated plot.
  • Step #2: Update config.py with our MIN_LR and MAX_LR , respectively.
  • Step #3: Train the network on our full dataset.

Assuming we have completed Steps #1 and #2 , let’s now handle Step #3 where our minimum and maximum learning rate have already been found and updated in the config.

In this case, it is time to initialize our Cyclical Learning Rate class and commence training:

Lines 142-147 initialize our CyclicLR .

Lines 151-157 then train our model using .fit_generator with our aug data augmentation object and our clr callback.

Upon training completion, we proceed to evaluate and save our model :

Line 161 makes predictions on our test set. Those predictions are passed into Lines 162 and 163 which print a classification report summary.

Line 167 serializes and saves the fine-tuned model to disk.

Finally, let’s plot both our training history and CLR history:

Lines 170-181 generate a plot of our training history and save the plot to disk.

Note: In TensorFlow 2.0, the history dictionary keys have changed from acc to accuracy and val_acc to val_accuracy . It is especially confusing since “accuracy” is spelled out now, but “validation” is not. Take special care with this nuance depending on your TensorFlow version.

Lines 184-190 plot our Cyclical Learning Rate history and save the figure to disk.

Finding our initial learning rate

Before we attempt to fine-tune our model to recognize natural disasters, let’s first use our learning rate finder to find an optimal set of learning rate ranges. Using this optimal learning rate range we’ll then be able to apply Cyclical Learning Rates to improve our model accuracy.

Make sure you have both:

  • Used the “Downloads” section of this tutorial to download the source code.
  • Downloaded the dataset using the “Downloading the natural disasters dataset” section above.

From there, open up a terminal and execute the following command:

Provided the train.py script exited without error, you should now have a file named lrfind_plot.png in your output directory.

Take a second now to inspect this image:

natural disasters project for college

Examining the plot you can see that our model initially starts to learn and gain traction around 1e-6 .

Our loss continues to drop until approximately 1e-4 where it starts to rise again, a sure sign of overfitting.

Our optimal learning rate range is, therefore, 1e-6 to 1e-4 .

Update our learning rates

Now that we know our optimal learning rates, let’s go back to our config.py file and update them accordingly:

Notice on Lines 19 and 20 (highlighted) of our configuration file that the MIN_LR and MAX_LR learning rate values are freshly updated. These values were found by inspecting our Keras Learning Rate Finder plot in the section above.

Training the natural disaster detection model with Keras

We can now fine-tune our model to recognize natural disasters!

Execute the following command which will train our network over the full set of epochs:

Here you can see that we are obtaining 95% accuracy when recognizing natural disasters in the testing set!

Examining our training plot we can see that our validation loss follows our training loss, implying there is little overfitting within our dataset itself:

natural disasters project for college

Finally, we have our learning rate plot which shows our our CLR callback oscillates the learning rate between our MIN_LR and MAX_LR , respectively:

natural disasters project for college

Implementing our natural disaster prediction script

Now that our model has been trained, let’s see how we can use it to make predictions on images/video it has never seen before — and thereby pave the way for an automatic natural disaster detection system.

To create this script we’ll take advantage of the temporal nature of videos , specifically the assumption that subsequent frames in a video will have similar semantic contents .

By performing rolling prediction accuracy we’ll be able to “smooth out” the predictions and avoid “prediction flickering”.

I have already covered this near-identical script in-depth in my Video Classification with Keras and Deep Learning article. Be sure to refer to that article for the full background and more-detailed code explanations.

To accomplish natural disaster video classification let’s inspect predict.py :

Lines 2-7 load necessary packages and modules. In particular, we’ll be using deque from Python’s collections module to assist with our rolling average algorithm.

Lines 10-19 parse command line arguments including the path to our input/output videos, size of our rolling average queue, and whether we will display the output frame to our screen while the video is being generated.

Let’s go ahead and load our natural disaster classification model and initialize our queue + video stream:

With our model , Q , and vs ready to go, we’ll begin looping over frames:

Lines 38-47 grab a frame and store its dimensions.

Lines 51-54 duplicate our frame for output purposes and then preprocess it for classification. The preprocessing steps are, and must be, the same as those that we performed for training.

Now let’s make a natural disaster prediction on the frame:

Lines 58 and 59 perform inference and add the predictions to our queue.

Line 63 performs a rolling average prediction of the predictions available in the Q .

Lines 64 and 65 then extract the highest probability class label so that we can annotate our frame:

Lines 68-70 annotate the natural disaster activity in the corner of the output frame.

Lines 73-80 handle writing the output frame to a video file.

If the --display flag is set, Lines 84-91 display the frame to the screen and capture keypresses.

Otherwise, processing continues until completion at which point the loop is finished and we perform cleanup ( Lines 95 and 96 ).

Predicting natural disasters with Keras

For the purposes of this tutorial, I downloaded example natural disaster videos via YouTube — the exact videos are listed in the “Credits” section below. You can either use your own example videos or download the videos via the credits list.

Either way, make sure you have used the “Downloads” section of this tutorial to download the source code and pre-trained natural disaster prediction model.

Once downloaded you can use the following command to launch the predict.py script:

Here you can see a sample result of our model correctly classifying this video clip as “flood”:

The following example comes from the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire:

For fun, I then tried applying the natural disaster detector to the movie San Andreas (2015) :

Notice how our model was able to correctly label the video clip as an (overly dramatized) earthquake.

You can find a full demo video below:

What's next? We recommend PyImageSearch University .

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Dataset curator:

  • Gautam Kumar

Video sources for the demo:

  • Hurricane Lorenzo Wreaks Havoc on The Azores on its way to UK
  • Fort McMurray wildfire: A timeline of a disaster
  • Floods 101 | National Geographic
  • 9.6 Magnitude Earthquake (Scenes from the film San Andreas 2015)
  • Terrific National Disasters Compilation

Audio for the demo video:

  • Bensound’s “Epic”

In this tutorial, you learned how to use computer vision and the Keras deep learning library to automatically detect natural disasters from images.

To create our natural disaster detector we fine-tuned VGG16 (pre-trained on ImageNet) on a dataset of 4,428 images belonging to four classes:

After our model was trained we evaluated it on the testing set, finding that it obtained 95% classification accuracy.

Using this model you can continue to perform research in natural disaster detection, ultimately helping save lives and reduce injury.

I hope you enjoyed this post!

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Articles & Advice > Student Life > Blog

Preparing for a Natural Disaster on Campus

If Hurricane Sandy or Katrina has taught us anything, it's that natural disasters have no regard to who and where they're hitting--including college campuses.

by Catherine Seraphin Assistant Editor, Online Specialist, Carnegie Communications

Last Updated: Nov 15, 2012

Originally Posted: Nov 15, 2012

If Hurricane Sandy or Katrina has taught us anything, it’s that natural disasters have no regard to who and where they’re hitting. Hurricanes, nor’easters, tornadoes, or earthquakes can affect even the most populated, and seemingly prepared, areas of the world. Sandy pummeled New York City and the New Jersey coastline, which have no shortage of people, homes, buildings, and of course, college campuses. Universities have their own plans for crisis preparation and recovery when a natural disaster impacts a campus, so you don’t have to worry about anything, right? Well, though the safety of the entire student body isn’t entirely up to you, your own safety and preparation is in your own hands. Review some of the tips I gave to stay safe during a campus crisis , and prepare yourself accordingly in case you and your college are in the path of a natural disaster with the steps below.

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t want to be one of those people storming the nearest Wal-Mart to battle the crowds for a can of beans. With this in mind, make your pre-storm preparations before your favorite weatherman has even predicted anything. You know what’s coming with hurricane or snow season, so stock up your supplies when you’re shopping for your dorm essentials. Keep some food on hand that doesn’t need any electricity to prepare or keep, like dried fruit, crackers, canned goods, etc. Make sure you stock up with other items you might need, like batteries, flashlights, and bottled water. Though most apartment buildings and dorms have back-up generators for some lights and heat, keep an extra blanket in case you lose power in the cold winter months. If you live in an apartment off campus, renter’s insurance may be a good investment—this protects your valuables in case they’re damaged.

When the wind is howling outside, you’ll likely be forced to stay inside your dorm or apartment. While you still have power, charge your phone in case you need to make calls for an emergency (if you do have a phone line that’s active and ready for use, it can’t hurt to hook up an old fashioned standard phone, as those work even without electricity). Additionally, if you live off campus and have meat in your freezer, cook some of it ahead of time in case you lose power for a lengthy amount of time—this will give you something to eat over the next few days, and will also prevent food waste. Also, make sure all windows and doors are locked, and if you may be prone to flooding, remove valuable items from the ground and put them high on a shelf, bed, desk, etc. If you have a car on campus, make sure it isn’t near any trees, and again, in case of flooding, bring it to an area with higher elevation so it’ll stay out of water and you can access it after the storm.

Hopefully you’re safe and sound! If your apartment has damage, and you invested in renter’s insurance like I suggested, now is a good time to assess the damage and call your insurance company if necessary. Before you go out and search for your car, make sure it’s safe to be outside, and check news outlets to see if any major roads are closed or flooded. Here’s why you need your phone powered up: check your e-mail and text messages for any alerts regarding class cancellation. In addition, you’ll be able to check the outage map of your power company to see when power is restored. Also, visit your state website (e.g., www.mass.gov for Massachusetts) for post-emergency instructions, information on closings, relevant phone numbers, and other important information. Be sure to check up on your neighbors too; if you live in the dorm, your resident assistant will be the best person to talk to if you have any questions or concerns.

Have you ever been in an emergency caused by a natural disaster? If so, what other tips do you have to prepare? Share in the comments below!

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About Catherine Seraphin

Catherine Seraphin

Catherine Seraphin is a Multimedia Project Manager at Harvard University  and a former Assistant Editor/Online Specialist for CollegeXpress. Catherine graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Journalism, a minor in English, and course concentrations in Business. She was previously an in-depth arts reporter for Penn State’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Collegian , and interned as a features reporter at a paper based in Southern Massachusetts. Catherine previously had a full-year internship with a well-known higher education PR firm. Her favorite experiences during college include her two years as a resident assistant and her involvement in  THON , the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. There, she was on the PR committee that helped THON become the third-most tweeted topic worldwide. When she isn’t working, you can find Catherine shopping, reading, or running.

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U.S. Will Pay to Add Solar Panels to Hospitals, Schools After Disasters

The federal government plans to reimburse state and local governments that rebuild damaged public buildings to be more energy resilient.

Two workers stand among rows of slate blue solar panels that cover the roof of a hospital.

By Christopher Flavelle

Christopher Flavelle writes about efforts to adapt to climate change.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will begin paying to install solar panels on schools, hospitals and other public buildings that are rebuilt after disasters, making them more resilient against future disasters while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The change, set to be announced on Tuesday, reflects the disaster agency’s decision to use federal dollars to expand renewable energy as it copes with worsening climate shocks.

The number of billion-dollar weather disasters keeps rising , straining the country’s ability to respond, as well as the ability of local officials to keep offering basic services to residents.

“If you’re installing solar panels, you are creating more energy independence,” Deanne Criswell, FEMA’s administrator, said in an interview.

The change comes amid major shifts in America’s response to disasters. Insurers are withdrawing from high-risk areas. People are donating directly to survivors through the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, although that money largely benefits the wealthy . FEMA is overhauling its programs to help individual disaster survivors, after acknowledging that the current programs often fail to provide adequate support.

It’s unclear how many state and local governments will take FEMA up on its offer to add clean energy to rebuild facilities. After a major disaster, the agency will typically reimburse state, local, tribal or territorial governments 75 percent of the cost of rebuilding or repairing structures like schools, hospitals, fire stations, libraries and other buildings. FEMA has paid for more than 105,000 such projects over the past decade.

That 75 percent reimbursement would now apply to additional costs of adding solar panels and other energy-related improvements, like heat pumps, batteries or energy-efficient appliances. But state or local officials would still need to come up with 25 percent of the cost. And they would not be required to participate.

A spokeswoman for FEMA said it did not have an estimate for how many state and local governments would make use of the new options, which are funded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

John Podesta, a senior adviser for clean energy innovation for President Biden, said the change will make up only a small part of the president’s goal of cutting United States greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The country is a long way from that goal: emissions have dropped by about 17 percent since 2005.

But the new policy demonstrates the Biden administration’s commitment to looking for emissions reductions wherever possible, Mr. Podesta said in an interview. “When we say all of government, we mean it,” he said.

The more significant consequence of the new policy, according to RMI, a research organization that works on clean energy, is that it could establish “resilience hubs” — places where residents could gather after a disaster that would still have power even if the grid is knocked out.

If a school or other community building has solar panels to generate electricity and batteries to store it, that building could serve as a respite for people whose homes lose electricity, said Alisa Petersen, the federal policy manager for RMI’s United States program team. And if the building also has energy-efficient appliances like heat pumps, it could serve more people for longer.

The promise of FEMA’s new policy, Ms. Petersen said, “is taking buildings that have been subject to disaster and making them resilient — so that the next time around, people actually have a place to go during the disaster.”

Christopher Flavelle is a Times reporter who writes about how the United States is trying to adapt to the effects of climate change. More about Christopher Flavelle

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Multi-hazard and Risk-informed System for Enhanced Local and Regional Disaster Risk Management

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Dr. Abdelghani Meslem is the coordinator of the MEDIate project, a Senior Research Engineer at NORSAR, a Norwegian research institute within the field of geoscience, and also affiliated to the (NMBU) as an Associate Professor in Structural Dynamics. Dr. Meslem earned his PhD in earthquake engineering from Chiba University, Japan, and he has been involved in various international projects related to seismic resilience and risk assessment studies; development and implementation of earthquake-disaster risk reduction and mitigation measurements; development of guidelines document, software and tools for risk assessment. Dr. Meslem has substantial experience in collaboration projects within industry, academia and governmental organizations. 

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Knowridge: Scientists turn greenhouse gas into plastics

Uc engineering professor is developing new ways of making in-demand chemical.

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Knowridge Science Report highlighted a University of Cincinnati engineer's innovative methods to convert carbon dioxide into ethylene, a chemical compound that is used in diverse manufacturing processes around the world.

Associate Professor Jingjie Wu in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science and his research partners developed an efficient method for converting carbon dioxide to ethylene, a key ingredient in plastics and many other uses.

Ethylene has been called “the world’s most important chemical,” used in everything from textiles to antifreeze to vinyl. The chemical industry generated 225 million metric tons of ethylene in 2022.

Wu said the process holds promise for one day producing ethylene through green energy instead of fossil fuels. It has the added benefit of removing carbon from the atmosphere.

His research team's findings were published in  the journal Nature Chemical Engineering .

Read the Knowridge Science Report story.

UC chemical engineering in the news

In his chemical engineering lab, Associate Professor Jingjie Wu is refining a process that converts carbon dioxide into ethylene. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand

  • Verve Times: Greenhouse gas turned into ethylene through conversion process
  • Technology Networks: Conversion turns greenhouse gas into ethylene
  • Chemical Processing: UC researchers ID path to more efficient ethylene production
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Energy writers highlight UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Associate Professor Jingjie Wu's innovations to convert carbon dioxide into ethylene for use in industry.

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October 6, 2022

UC engineering professors explain significance of Cincinnati water plant shutdown in May.

College of Nursing

Driving change: a case study of a dnp leader in residence program in a gerontological center of excellence.

View as pdf A later version of this article appeared in Nurse Leader , Volume 21, Issue 6 , December 2023 . 

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) published the Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Practice Nursing in 2004 identifying the essential curriculum needed for preparing advanced practice nurse leaders to effectively assess organizations, identify systemic issues, and facilitate organizational changes. 1 In 2021, AACN updated the curriculum by issuing The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education to guide the development of competency-based education for nursing students. 1 In addition to AACN’s competency-based approach to curriculum, in 2015 the American Organization of Nurse Leaders (AONL) released Nurse Leader Core Competencies (updated in 2023) to help provide a competency based model to follow in developing nurse leaders. 2

Despite AACN and AONL competency-based curriculum and model, it is still common for nurse leaders to be promoted to management positions based solely on their work experience or exceptional clinical skills, rather than demonstration of management and leadership competencies. 3 The importance of identifying, training, and assessing executive leaders through formal leadership development programs, within supportive organizational cultures has been discussed by national leaders. As well as the need for nurturing emerging leaders through fostering interprofessional collaboration, mentorship, and continuous development of leadership skills has been identified. 4 As Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) nurse leaders assume executive roles within healthcare organizations, they play a vital role within complex systems. Demonstration of leadership competence and participation in formal leadership development programs has become imperative for their success. However, models of competency-based executive leadership development programs can be hard to find, particularly programs outside of health care systems.

The implementation of a DNP Leader in Residence program, such as the one designed for The Barbara and Richard Csomay Center for Gerontological Excellence, addresses many of the challenges facing new DNP leaders and ensures mastery of executive leadership competencies and readiness to practice through exposure to varied experiences and close mentoring. The Csomay Center , based at The University of Iowa, was established in 2000 as one of the five original Hartford Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence in the country. Later funding by the Csomay family established an endowment that supports the Center's ongoing work. The current Csomay Center strategic plan and mission aims to develop future healthcare leaders while promoting optimal aging and quality of life for older adults. The Csomay Center Director created the innovative DNP Leader in Residence program to foster the growth of future nurse leaders in non-healthcare systems. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the development and implementation of the Leader in Residence program, followed by suggested evaluation strategies, and discussion of future innovation of leadership opportunities in non-traditional health care settings.

Development of the DNP Leader in Residence Program

The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle has garnered substantial recognition as a valuable tool for fostering development and driving improvement initiatives. 5 The PDSA cycle can function as an independent methodology and as an integral component of broader quality enhancement approaches with notable efficacy in its ability to facilitate the rapid creation, testing, and evaluation of transformative interventions within healthcare. 6 Consequently, the PDSA cycle model was deemed fitting to guide the development and implementation of the DNP Leader in Residence Program at the Csomay Center.

PDSA Cycle: Plan

Existing resources. The DNP Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership Program offered by the University of Iowa is comprised of comprehensive nursing administration and leadership curriculum, led by distinguished faculty composed of national leaders in the realms of innovation, health policy, leadership, clinical education, and evidence-based practice. The curriculum is designed to cultivate the next generation of nursing executive leaders, with emphasis on personalized career planning and tailored practicum placements. The DNP Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership curriculum includes a range of courses focused on leadership and management with diverse topics such as policy an law, infrastructure and informatics, finance and economics, marketing and communication, quality and safety, evidence-based practice, and social determinants of health. The curriculum is complemented by an extensive practicum component and culminates in a DNP project with additional hours of practicum.

New program. The DNP Leader in Residence program at the Csomay Center is designed to encompass communication and relationship building, systems thinking, change management, transformation and innovation, knowledge of clinical principles in the community, professionalism, and business skills including financial, strategic, and human resource management. The program fully immerses students in the objectives of the DNP Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership curriculum and enables them to progressively demonstrate competencies outlined by AONL. The Leader in Residence program also includes career development coaching, reflective practice, and personal and professional accountability. The program is integrated throughout the entire duration of the Leader in Residence’s coursework, fulfilling the required practicum hours for both the DNP coursework and DNP project.

The DNP Leader in Residence program begins with the first semester of practicum being focused on completing an onboarding process to the Center including understanding the center's strategic plan, mission, vision, and history. Onboarding for the Leader in Residence provides access to all relevant Center information and resources and integration into the leadership team, community partnerships, and other University of Iowa College of Nursing Centers associated with the Csomay Center. During this first semester, observation and identification of the Csomay Center Director's various roles including being a leader, manager, innovator, socializer, and mentor is facilitated. In collaboration with the Center Director (a faculty position) and Center Coordinator (a staff position), specific competencies to be measured and mastered along with learning opportunities desired throughout the program are established to ensure a well-planned and thorough immersion experience.

Following the initial semester of practicum, the Leader in Residence has weekly check-ins with the Center Director and Center Coordinator to continue to identify learning opportunities and progression through executive leadership competencies to enrich the experience. The Leader in Residence also undertakes an administrative project for the Center this semester, while concurrently continuing observations of the Center Director's activities in local, regional, and national executive leadership settings. The student has ongoing participation and advancement in executive leadership roles and activities throughout the practicum, creating a well-prepared future nurse executive leader.

After completing practicum hours related to the Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership coursework, the Leader in Residence engages in dedicated residency hours to continue to experience domains within nursing leadership competencies like communication, professionalism, and relationship building. During residency hours, time is spent with the completion of a small quality improvement project for the Csomay Center, along with any other administrative projects identified by the Center Director and Center Coordinator. The Leader in Residence is fully integrated into the Csomay Center's Leadership Team during this phase, assisting the Center Coordinator in creating agendas and leading meetings. Additional participation includes active involvement in community engagement activities and presenting at or attending a national conference as a representative of the Csomay Center. The Leader in Residence must mentor a master’s in nursing student during the final year of the DNP Residency.

Implementation of the DNP Leader in Residence Program

PDSA Cycle: Do

Immersive experience. In this case study, the DNP Leader in Residence was fully immersed in a wide range of center activities, providing valuable opportunities to engage in administrative projects and observe executive leadership roles and skills during practicum hours spent at the Csomay Center. Throughout the program, the Leader in Residence observed and learned from multidisciplinary leaders at the national, regional, and university levels who engaged with the Center. By shadowing the Csomay Center Director, the Leader in Residence had the opportunity to observe executive leadership objectives such as fostering innovation, facilitating multidisciplinary collaboration, and nurturing meaningful relationships. The immersive experience within the center’s activities also allowed the Leader in Residence to gain a deep understanding of crucial facets such as philanthropy and community engagement. Active involvement in administrative processes such as strategic planning, budgeting, human resources management, and the development of standard operating procedures provided valuable exposure to strategies that are needed to be an effective nurse leader in the future.

Active participation. The DNP Leader in Residence also played a key role in advancing specific actions outlined in the center's strategic plan during the program including: 1) the creation of a membership structure for the Csomay Center and 2) successfully completing a state Board of Regents application for official recognition as a distinguished center. The Csomay Center sponsored membership for the Leader in Residence in the Midwest Nurse Research Society (MNRS), which opened doors to attend the annual MNRS conference and engage with regional nursing leadership, while fostering socialization, promotion of the Csomay Center and Leader in Residence program, and observation of current nursing research. Furthermore, the Leader in Residence participated in the strategic planning committee and engagement subcommittee for MNRS, collaborating directly with the MNRS president. Additional active participation by the Leader in Residence included attendance in planning sessions and completion of the annual report for GeriatricPain.org , an initiative falling under the umbrella of the Csomay Center. Finally, the Leader in Residence was involved in archiving research and curriculum for distinguished nursing leader and researcher, Dr. Kitty Buckwalter, for the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging, the University of Pennsylvania Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, and the University of Iowa library archives.

Suggested Evaluation Strategies of the DNP Leader in Residence Program

PDSA Cycle: Study

Assessment and benchmarking. To effectively assess the outcomes and success of the DNP Leader in Residence Program, a comprehensive evaluation framework should be used throughout the program. Key measures should include the collection and review of executive leadership opportunities experienced, leadership roles observed, and competencies mastered. The Leader in Residence is responsible for maintaining detailed logs of their participation in center activities and initiatives on a semester basis. These logs serve to track the progression of mastery of AONL competencies by benchmarking activities and identifying areas for future growth for the Leader in Residence.

Evaluation. In addition to assessment and benchmarking, evaluations need to be completed by Csomay Center stakeholders (leadership, staff, and community partners involved) and the individual Leader in Residence both during and upon completion of the program. Feedback from stakeholders will identify the contributions made by the Leader in Residence and provide valuable insights into their growth. Self-reflection on experiences by the individual Leader in Residence throughout the program will serve as an important measure of personal successes and identify gaps in the program. Factors such as career advancement during the program, application of curriculum objectives in the workplace, and prospects for future career progression for the Leader in Residence should be considered as additional indicators of the success of the program.

The evaluation should also encompass a thorough review of the opportunities experienced during the residency, with the aim of identifying areas for potential expansion and enrichment of the DNP Leader in Residence program. By carefully examining the logs, reflecting on the acquired executive leadership competencies, and studying stakeholder evaluations, additional experiences and opportunities can be identified to further enhance the program's efficacy. The evaluation process should be utilized to identify specific executive leadership competencies that require further immersion and exploration throughout the program.

Future Innovation of DNP Leader in Residence Programs in Non-traditional Healthcare Settings

PDSA Cycle: Act

As subsequent residents complete the program and their experiences are thoroughly evaluated, it is essential to identify new opportunities for DNP Leader in Residence programs to be implemented in other non-health care system settings. When feasible, expansion into clinical healthcare settings, including long-term care and acute care environments, should be pursued. By leveraging the insights gained from previous Leaders in Residence and their respective experiences, the program can be refined to better align with desired outcomes and competencies. These expansions will broaden the scope and impact of the program and provide a wider array of experiences and challenges for future Leaders in Residency to navigate, enriching their development as dynamic nurse executive leaders within diverse healthcare landscapes.

This case study presented a comprehensive overview of the development and implementation of the DNP Leader in Residence program developed by the Barbara and Richard Csomay Center for Gerontological Excellence. The Leader in Residence program provided a transformative experience by integrating key curriculum objectives, competency-based learning, and mentorship by esteemed nursing leaders and researchers through successful integration into the Center. With ongoing innovation and application of the PDSA cycle, the DNP Leader in Residence program presented in this case study holds immense potential to help better prepare 21 st century nurse leaders capable of driving positive change within complex healthcare systems.

Acknowledgements

         The author would like to express gratitude to the Barbara and Richard Csomay Center for Gerontological Excellence for the fostering environment to provide an immersion experience and the ongoing support for development of the DNP Leader in Residence program. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

  • American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The essentials: core competencies for professional nursing education. https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/AcademicNursing/pdf/Essentials-2021.pdf . Accessed June 26, 2023.
  • American Organization for Nursing Leadership. Nurse leader core competencies. https://www.aonl.org/resources/nurse-leader-competencies . Accessed July 10, 2023.
  • Warshawsky, N, Cramer, E. Describing nurse manager role preparation and competency: findings from a national study. J Nurs Adm . 2019;49(5):249-255. DOI:  10.1097/NNA.0000000000000746
  • Van Diggel, C, Burgess, A, Roberts, C, Mellis, C. Leadership in healthcare education. BMC Med. Educ . 2020;20(465). doi: 10.1186/s12909-020-02288-x
  • Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Plan-do-study-act (PDSA) worksheet. https://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Tools/PlanDoStudyActWorksheet.aspx . Accessed July 4, 2023.
  • Taylor, M, McNicolas, C, Nicolay, C, Darzi, A, Bell, D, Reed, J. Systemic review of the application of the plan-do-study-act method to improve quality in healthcare. BMJ Quality & Safety. 2014:23:290-298. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2013-002703

Return to College of Nursing Winter 23/24 Newsletter

  • MyU : For Students, Faculty, and Staff

Jacquelyn Burt Earns 2024 John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising

Department of Computer Science & Engineering Undergraduate Academic Advisor Jacquelyn Burt was awarded the 2024 John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising. Named in honor of John Tate, Professor of Physics and first Dean of University College (1930-41), the Tate Awards serve to recognize and reward high-quality academic advising, calling attention to the contribution academic advising makes to helping students formulate and achieve intellectual, career, and personal goals.

“I thought it was a trick when I got the email that I was being nominated,” said Jacquelyn. “Within the advising field, this award is a big deal; I described it to my parents as ‘the advising Grammys’. Part of what makes it so cool is the nomination process, which involves several letters of support from students and colleagues as well as putting together a kind of portfolio of some of the programs and resources I’ve helped develop. So many different people contributed to that on my behalf, so it was really powerful to be reminded of the impact of my work and the amazing colleagues and students I get to love!”

Jacquelyn is a lifelong Gopher, earning her B.S. in business marketing education in 2014 and her M.Ed. in education policy and leadership in 2019. She joined the CS&E student services team in 2019, where she quickly developed a reputation as a staunch ally and advocate for her students. In 2021, Jacquelyn received the Gopher Spirit Award , recognizing the U of M advisor who contributes to a positive office culture, is inclusive, and brings others up. “I feel the most useful when a student or colleague is misunderstanding something, or experiencing a lot of stress, and I am able to help separate it into smaller pieces or come up with a different way of looking at it,” said Jacquelyn. “If I can shine light on something, help shift a lens or perspective, or give an idea or experience a bit of breathing room, I’m doing my job.”

When asked about what inspired her to work in advising, Jacquelyn replied, “When I first came to the University of Minnesota as a freshman, I was a family and social sciences major - I love relationships and helping, and so figured a career in marriage and family therapy sounded good. However, I’ve also always loved education and felt most at home at school - when I finished my undergraduate degree, I didn’t want to leave college because I loved it so much! Student advising seemed like a cool sweet spot between classroom teaching, advocacy, and being in a helping role. Ultimately, I’ve really come to see advising as facilitation work: I help students identify and navigate barriers to their goals, experiences, and personal development.”

As an undergraduate advisor, Jacquelyn manages a caseload of over 450 students in multiple majors, minors and other departmental programs. On top of her advising duties, Jacquelyn has undertaken a number of projects to better the undergraduate student experience, including establishing a weekly newsletter; designing, promoting, and executing departmental events and programs; and developing and teaching students through a variety of training and credit-bearing coursework. Most notably, Jacquelyn created and now facilitates mandatory implicit bias training for all 200+ undergraduate teaching assistants, as well as teaching CSCI 2915: Teaching Methods in Computer Science (a leadership and communication skills seminar) each semester.

“Within our student services team, we’ve developed a great culture of initiative and problem-solving: like, if you identify a problem and have or can create tools to help address it, amazing - you go get it!” said Jacquelyn. “We all believe that students deserve to have positive and supportive experiences while they are here, and we’ve built an advising team that trusts each of us to help bear that belief out. I definitely could not do my job without the collaboration, encouragement, and love of the whole team.”

On top of her work within CS&E, Jacquelyn has personally designed advising resources that have made an impact for undergraduate students across the entire university. Her “Explore & Expand” tool (originally developed for the college’s major/minor expo) is used widely throughout the entire University, particularly within the Center for Academic Planning and Exploration office. Additionally, her “Academic Progress Audit System Guide” resource (originally used within the departmental “Welcome to the Major” workshops) has been used in advisor training and onboarding. Above all, Jacquelyn has a keen eye for making connections, and for communicating things that can be overwhelmingly complex with both clarity and compassion.

“When I applied for this job, I had to come up with an ‘advising philosophy,’” said Jacquelyn. “What I landed on is anytime a student leaves an interaction with me, I want them to feel a little bit more seen, supported, and celebrated. I am a naturally celebratory person, which I’ve learned to embrace - and this award is a wonderful way to celebrate the work of advising!”

Learn more about the John Tate Award at the Provost website . 

Jacquelyn Burt headshot

Related news releases

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  • Computing Ethics Project Receives $400,000 Grant
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  • CS&E’s Jacquelyn Burt wins Gopher Spirit Award
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IMAGES

  1. Natural disaster model project (flooding) for social science exhibition project

    natural disasters project for college

  2. natural disaster working model 3d project (draught)

    natural disasters project for college

  3. Natural Disasters Project Craft

    natural disasters project for college

  4. Natural Disaster Project Ideas

    natural disasters project for college

  5. natural disaster model project (drought)

    natural disasters project for college

  6. Natural Disasters Project Craft

    natural disasters project for college

VIDEO

  1. Main natural disaster

  2. Natural disasters

  3. Structure of volcanos science bro

  4. Natural Disaster project... || Social studies... #shorts #project #viral

  5. Natural Disasters Project

  6. 16 January 2024

COMMENTS

  1. Disaster Planning and Emergency Preparedness for Students

    01/26/2024 Natural disasters can happen anywhere, anytime. Manmade emergencies are very much the same. When a student is on campus, perhaps far away from home and expected to be independent, the thought of a disaster or crisis can seem overwhelming.

  2. Natural Disaster Project Ideas

    10K views Historic Report (Individual) In this project, students will be creating a report on a major natural disaster from history. All students in class should pick a different natural...

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    The 2024 Gateways to Blue Skies Competition is asking teams to conceptualize, in terms of feasibility and viability, aviation-related system (s) that can be applied by 2035 to one phase of management of a chosen type of natural disaster to improve capabilities.

  4. Ways to Support Students Through Natural Disasters

    In 2020, there were a total of 416 natural disaster events worldwide. Natural disasters cause unplanned displacement and disruption on college students; In order to adequately support students, colleges and universities need to enact programs that meet students' mental health and basic needs while also addressing impacts to academic progress.

  5. Natural Disaster Preparedness In College Students: Implications For

    environment or community (Halpern & Tramontin, 2007). Examples of natural disasters include tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes, to name a few. Natural disasters can affect a large region of land and last for days, or can impact a single community and last only minutes. For example, in 2011, a tornado producing wind speeds of up to 200 mph

  6. A natural disaster student support program for online students faces

    STUDENT‐FOCUSED NATURAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION. Past studies in the domain of higher education and disaster resilience show that college students recovering from natural disasters who receive support are more likely to continue with their coursework and graduate (Cerqua & Di Pietro, 2017; Frankenberg et al., 2013).Early communication and a compassionate offering of support ...

  7. It's Time to Prepare Students for Climate Change Disasters

    Climate disaster curriculum, DeVincenzo and his NCDP colleague outline, could consist of preparing students and their families to have "go bags" in case of emergencies; how to recognize the signs of heat exhaustion; and providing instruction on how to avoid flooded roadways.

  8. Natural Disaster Preparedness in College Students: Implications for

    Research in the area of college students and disasters offers recommendations and best practices for supporting students who have had their academic progress disrupted by disaster (Holzweiss et al ...

  9. Resources for Communities Following Natural Disasters

    Recent natural disasters have significantly impacted communities and their education institutions. Since 2017, there have been over 300 presidentially declared major disasters across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Outlying Areas. ... Funding for Project SERV awards typically range from $50,000 to $150,000. Other resources from federal ...

  10. Purdue Extension seeks to build community resilience after a natural

    Purdue Extension is continuing its role serving as an administrative lead for the Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) and expanding disaster education response throughout America. EDEN, a multistate collaboration of land-grant Extension Services, including 1862, 1890, 1994, Hispanic-serving institutions and Sea Grant programs, aims to reduce the impact of disasters through research ...

  11. Fires, floods, hurricanes: Teachers turn natural disasters ...

    Most high schoolers lack classes needed for college. What one school district is doing about it. ... emphasize hands-on science projects and critical thinking over rote memorization. Some teachers said that current natural disasters offer a perfect way to combine science lessons with real-life events, which students might be following on the ...

  12. How College Students Can Get Natural Disaster Assistance

    How College Students Can Get Natural Disaster Assistance If you're affected by a natural disaster, you may be eligible for more financial aid or a payment pause on loans. By Anna Helhoski...

  13. A New Massive Open Online Course on Natural Disasters

    Since 2000, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, has offered a course with the simple title of "Natural Disasters.". The course, which teaches students the scientific principles underpinning ...

  14. 30 US Colleges that are prepared for natural disasters: These colleges

    Methodology A range of sources has been used to identify colleges with strong natural disaster plans. These sources are as follows: Campus Explorer, Natural Disasters and Emergency Preparedness on Campus: https://www.campusexplorer.com/college-advice-tips/8CBD4286/Natural-Disasters-and-Emergency-Preparedness-on-Campus/

  15. Disaster Impacts on College Students: Life Trajectories at Stake

    February 1, 2023 Disaster Impacts on College Students: Life Trajectories at Stake By Kyle Breen and Michelle Annette Meyer College students in the United States occupy a unique social space between adolescence and adulthood.

  16. Natural Disasters (Gen Ed 1098)

    Brendan Meade. From Mexico to India, San Francisco to Tokyo, natural disasters have shaped both the surface of our planet and the development of civilizations. These catastrophes claim thousands of lives and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage each year, and the impact of natural disasters is only increasing as a result of human ...

  17. Foundation, Inc. Natural Disasters: Lessons From The RISK Project

    The RISK Project ABSTRACTClimate change exacerbates the severity of natural disasters, ... were enrolled in community college in 2003. In contrast to most disaster research, RISK exam- ...

  18. Natural Distasters

    We explored our Natural Disasters through two lenses: Objective (Science and Action) and Subjective (Human Experience). One of the most rewarding aspects of the Natural Disasters project happened as we were investigating our Objective learning. The middle schoolers participated in an hour-long Natural Disaster Scenario where they were asked to ...

  19. Detecting Natural Disasters with Keras and Deep Learning

    In this tutorial, you will learn how to automatically detect natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, wildfires, cyclones/hurricanes) with up to 95% accuracy using Keras, Computer Vision, and Deep Learning. I remember the first time I ever experienced a natural disaster — I was just a kid in kindergarten, no more than 6-7 years old.

  20. Disaster Preparedness and Awareness among University Students: A ...

    Students have long been among those most emotionally and physically affected by natural or manmade disasters, yet universities and colleges continue to lack effective disaster response and mitigation practices. This research identifies how students' socio-demographics and disaster preparedness indicators (DPIs) impact their awareness of the dangers of disasters and their ability to survive ...

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    February 13, 2020 Aggie scholars help develop natural disaster resilience software. Real progress is being made by Texas A&M urban planning faculty to help communities better prepare for and recover from natural disasters.. The Aggie faculty members, affiliated with the Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, are working closely with emergency planners in several communities and ...

  22. Preparing for a Natural Disaster on Campus

    About Catherine Seraphin. Catherine Seraphin is a Multimedia Project Manager at Harvard University and a former Assistant Editor/Online Specialist for CollegeXpress. Catherine graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Journalism, a minor in English, and course concentrations in Business. She was previously an in-depth arts reporter for Penn State's student-run newspaper, The ...

  23. FEMA to Cover Costs of Energy Resilient Post-Disaster Projects

    After a major disaster, the agency will typically reimburse state, local, tribal or territorial governments 75 percent of the cost of rebuilding or repairing structures like schools, hospitals ...

  24. Natural Disaster project .

    Natural Disaster project . DISASTER A sudden and terrible event in nature (such as a hurricane, tornado, or flood) that usually results in serious damage and many deaths. MAN-MADE DISASTER Man-made disasters are usually the result of things going wrong in our complex technological society.

  25. Multi-hazard and Risk-informed System for Enhanced Local and ...

    MEDiate is a HORIZON Europe project with the main objective to contribute to improving disaster risk management and governance. The project is developing a decision-support system (DSS) for disaster risk management considering multiple interacting natural hazards and cascading impacts using a novel resilient-informed and service-oriented approach that accounts for forecasted modifications in ...

  26. Energy media highlight UC project to turn greenhouse gas into ethylene

    Knowridge Science Report highlighted a University of Cincinnati engineer's innovative methods to convert carbon dioxide into ethylene, a chemical compound that is used in diverse manufacturing processes around the world.. Associate Professor Jingjie Wu in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science and his research partners developed an efficient method for converting carbon dioxide to ...

  27. Driving change: a case study of a DNP leader in residence program in a

    During residency hours, time is spent with the completion of a small quality improvement project for the Csomay Center, along with any other administrative projects identified by the Center Director and Center Coordinator. ... BMJ Quality & Safety. 2014:23:290-298. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2013-002703 Return to College of Nursing Winter 23/24 ...

  28. Jacquelyn Burt Earns 2024 John Tate Award for Excellence in

    Department of Computer Science & Engineering Undergraduate Academic Advisor Jacquelyn Burt was awarded the 2024 John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising. Named in honor of John Tate, Professor of Physics and first Dean of University College (1930-41), the Tate Awards serve to recognize and reward high-quality academic advising, calling attention to the contribution academic ...

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    When you say the words "Georgia Football" one position comes to mind: running back. From Herschel Walker to Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, the program produces NFL talent at running back year in and ...