Geology for Global Development

Help us Teach Hazards in the Himalayas

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Geology for Global Development are involved in an international project on Sustainable Resource Development of the Himalaya (see www.gfgd.org/projects/himalayas2014), which will cumulate in the delivery of a students’ programme in Ladakh, India, in June 2014. The programme will include lessons on resources, climate, earthquakes and landslides. GfGD have particular responsibility for delivering the landslide part of the teaching programme.

We are beginning to collate ideas for teaching material and demonstrations. This is our call to crowd source ideas from across our network.

If you have any ideas for teaching demonstrations, please send them our way! This could include:

  • Your own idea to demonstrate a key concept in a simple, exciting way. You can send us a video of yourself demonstrating it, or explain it in writing.
  • Existing lesson plans or teaching demonstrations that you have seen online, or remember from your own classes.
  • Photos or diagrams

Our lesson plan will introduce the concept of hazards and vulnerability, and then go into detail about landslide events. The lesson will follow closely the table of contents for the associated teaching booklet, which can be downloaded separately.

It is important that our lesson uses only low-cost, locally sourced materials. Any ideas submitted must be culturally appropriate, and suitable for 12-16 year old students in Ladakh, India. More information on Ladakhi culture and demographics can be found in Katharine Sherratt’s report on our website.

The teaching programme we deliver will provide vital education for students in a landslide-prone, mountainous region, helping them to understand and manage the hazards they face. Ladakh has a unique and diverse population, and is home to some of the world’s most threatened tribes. Many communities are isolated and highly vulnerable. Any ideas submitted will be used to teach young people from many schools across the Ladakh region, including members of the nomadic Changpa tribe. We hope to maximise the reach and impact of this work, by using interactive, memorable and easy to understand demonstrations.

Please get any ideas to us before the 1st June.

If you are able to help us out, please send ideas and resources to Rosalie Tostevin, GfGD Himalayas Programme Officer [rosalie@gfgd.org].

Rosalie was the Himalayas Programme Officer for Geology for Global Development and writer for the GfGD blog. She is a geochemist and a postdoc at the University of Oxford.