Bring on the dancing zombies: the undead teach disaster preparedness at Lamoille HS

I know, I know. But let me get a show of hands: how many of you now have that song stuck in your heads?

You’re welcome.

whitneykaulbachWhitney Kaulbach is a social studies educator at Lamoille Union High School, and over on her blog, she’s written a compelling and well thought out post on how she used the zombie apocalypse with her students in a unit on disaster preparedness.

 

 

My quick assessment of success in teaching this unit: Students have developed a habit of paying attention to news events.  The impact of disaster became very real for some of our students following news events and the typhoon in the Philippines.  The idea of disaster preparedness was no longer focused on killing zombies but saving lives.

…Preparing for a zombie apocalypse is quite similar to surviving a typhoon. Access to 2 gallons of drinking water a day, food, shelter from exposure to elements become crucial to survival.

Lamoille Union High School is going 1:1 with iPads, and, moved by one student’s in-depth and compelling project response, Kaulbach writes, ” I can’t wait until this student receives her 1:1 iPad from our schoolwide initiative.  Think how much more depth and detail could be added if she had access to her document at all times instead of the limited time I accessed for her.”

We can’t wait either, and we love it when educators are visionaries!

 

Audrey Homan

Audrey Homan is a Vermont-based digital media producer, and producer of The 21st Century Classroom podcast. She's worked in non-profit communications for more than a decade, and in her spare time writes tiny video games and mucks about with augmented reality and arduinos, ably assisted by five dogs. Interviewing students and yelling in PHP are the best parts of her job.

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