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.
Very good course. I have been in the back country manny times with lighting striking in all conditions. Many people don't realize that there is a thing called thunder snow. It is snowing at the ground due to the temperatures, however it is a thunderstorm that is creating the precipitation. This can be extremely dangerous especially since most people do associate snow with a thunder storm. I have been in several in the Uintas in the fall.
ReplyDeleteYou need to embed a clip from the movie the great outdoors of that guy that gets struck multiple times.
Lance has a great suggestion for the movie clip... That would keep me wanting more.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I saw two specific learning goals in this post and if you need help with another I would like to suggest narrowing down the topic from overall lightning safety to something like where you should be in a back country lightning storm... It may make 5-1 and 5-2 easier on you.
great course, I love that you are able to receive some fun money for a job you enjoy doing. Great job.