Learning About Natural Disasters and Health in Middle School Using a Live Simulation: High and Deep Engagement.

Abstract

Natural Disasters and Health (NDH) inspires and informs middle school teachers and their students about the life-threatening health effects of natural disasters to stimulate interest in science. The goals of the U.S. NIH-funded NDH are to improve student scientific literacy of human body systems using natural disasters, develop student critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills to identify and effectively respond to problems, and promote community involvement, career awareness, and diversity of participants. NDH delivers disaster health education using a 90-minute videoconference and role-playing simulation. Students act as medical responders using body system knowledge to make critical decisions about emergency treatment. The middle school science hook of natural disasters provides a realistic and authentic setting where students learn about vital signs and body systems commonly damaged in disasters. This paper describes NDH's context, project, intentional design, and background of combining disaster and science. One gifted seventh-grade science class's experiences are included along with the teacher's facilitation, premission instruction, mixed-method design, the simulation effectiveness results, lessons learned, and implications for using role-playing simulations in middle school science. The teacher observed deep and high engagement from the students. Students' health and natural disaster knowledge showed a significant difference from pre to postsurvey.