Agency experts support bushfire disaster resilience education with primary school students | Natural Hazards Research Australia

Agency experts support bushfire disaster resilience education with primary school students

Research theme

Resilient communities

Project type

Associate student research

Project status

In progress

This project is exploring how volunteer firefighters acting as expert partners in classrooms influence Year 5 and 6 education and disaster resilience outcomes during a bushfire unit of study. Using New South Wales as a case study, this research will consider the real-world challenges of bushfire risk and disaster risk reduction in a local context by engaging with educators and the emergency services to deliver research that will make a difference to young people in their local setting.

Project details

Children and youth need to be involved in all aspects of learning about and understanding natural hazards and disaster risks in our environment.

The literature around educational practice is extensive, and around expert partners in classrooms less so but developed. There is no evidence around the value of contributions that volunteer fire fighter expert partners make to student learning outcomes and disaster resilience education outcomes. 

This gap in knowledge is the focus of this research. Data is now being collected at two case schools using a mix of semi-structured interviews with teachers and NSW Rural Fire Service fire fighters, observations of classroom activities and focus groups with students as well as parents/carers. One case focuses on contemporary teaching practice where the school is delivering the required bush fire unit of study in 2022. The other focuses on teacher reflections of delivering that bush fire unit of study in 2016.