Topic: Lightning Safety. My online class will deal with teaching students how to stay as safe as possible during a thunderstorm in the wilderness. Specifically, the class will deal with lightning safety.

Need: Lightning is somewhat unpredictable, and injuries and deaths from lightning are fairly rare, but backcountry users have an increased chance of being caught in a potentially unsafe situation. By following certain guidelines outlined in this course, students will increase their chances of making it through a lightning storm safely.

Learners: Lightning safety should be a part of any good backcountry class curriculum. Lightning has the possibility of affecting all types of backcountry users, from mountain bikers and day hikers to rock climbers and mountaineers. The University of Utah requires that it be taught in all their Natural Resources Learning courses. The students of these courses include adults ages 18 and up, with varying levels of experience in the outdoors. Some of their strengths and weaknesses include their level of experience; some may have experienced being outside in a lightning storm before, and some never have. Also, their interest level. Some students don't really like to spend time outdoors, they just took the class to get and "easy" 2 hours of college credit. I've found, however, that lightning is a fascinating enough topic (especially when I mention that Florida has the highest incidence for people being struck, because of golf courses!) that they usually all pay attention.

My learning goals for my online course

Two Learning Goals for my online course about lightning safety:

1. Students will be able to describe specific actions that can decrease their chances of being struck by lightning.
2. Students will describe when to use "lightning position," describe what it is, and describe why it decreases their chances of exposure to different types of lightning strikes.

Teaching Methods: I want the students to read text about lightening (some interesting facts as well as practical information) and view photos of different geographical areas, in order to learn what part geography plays in lightning safety. I want to show photos of several different locations (i.e. a person on top of a mountain, a boat out on the water, a person in a cave, a person in a small ravine, a person out in the open, and a person in a forest) and have them evaluate the safeness of each location, and why they think it is safe or unsafe in a lightning storm. Once they've done that, then they can move on to see how their answers stack up and why. Then I will also have a video tutorial that demonstrates "lightning position" and describes why this position increases their likeliness of survival if caught out in a lightning storm. At the end of the course, students can answer a short quiz to test their knowledge, in order to see if the learning goals were met.