Disaster By Choice

September 2023
Overall Verdict: ★ ★ ★ ★ 
To buy this book, click here.

Why this book?
Since its release in 2020, this book has been an unsurprising hit with the geography teacher community. The overall message of this book is that there is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster’ and, for many, it has led to a change in the way we teach the natural hazards units of KS3, GCSE and A-Level. It has forced us to reflect on the language used in our geography classrooms and, from my experience and observations, it has resulted in a renewed emphasis on the importance of vulnerability with younger students- making it a key part of teaching tectonics at KS3.

This book is well-known for its discussion of tectonic hazards (with extracts now used in many classrooms) but what surprised me was the depth of discussion about the myriad other hazards of nature. Having only recently read this book in 2022, I’m late in coming to it and so wanted to use this blog to highlight some of these other areas and consider how we might use them in our teaching.

For teachers:
Having assumed this book was all about tectonics, the relative brevity of discussion exclusively about tectonic hazards surprised me. I’ve seen less discussion on the following ideas from the book but think they are of equal use to geography teachers.

As above, the key message that nature’s hazards become a disaster when we have not planned or prepared for them runs through the book. One point linked to this that I found particularly interesting to reflect on is how how hurricanes, wildfires, temperature extremes and river floods can last days whereas tsunamis and earthquakes (even with all their associated aftershocks) rarely endure longer than hours. This is a point that I don’t think I’ve stressed enough when teaching hazards and is certainly something to reflect on. Do we make it clear to students the various temporal scales on which natural hazards occur? Do we get students to reflect on how quickly an earthquake is ‘over’ and the how long the impacts and effects last?

Chapter 2: Wildfires
Despite touching on them as a hazard at various points across the 7-year geography curriculum, my subject knowledge of wildfires is certainly less strong than other hazards despite their increasing occurrence in our warming world.  This chapter covers their spread, how their management has changed from the perspectives and approaches of indigenous communities, the significance of urban expansion into fire-prone areas and how we might deal with vulnerability to wildfires. For those teaching about wildfires, this is an excellent subject knowledge update.

Chapter 2: River / Estuary Management
In the second chapter, Kelman discusses Canvey island as an example of draining marshland and building on a floodplain. Explaining the evolution of the Thames Barrier and the long management of the River Thames’ flow, this chapter reminded me of the complexity of flood risk and flood management and certainly further developed my subject knowledge. I plan to re-visit it ahead of teaching the flooding section of our rivers topics!

To buy this book, click here.