This digital comic book is an engaging tool for teaching students about the dangers of wildfires and how they can be prevented.
Students will learn about just how quickly wildfires can begin, how wildfires impact ecosystems, and what people can do to prevent wildfires.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This comic book is relatable for students and provides a great overview of what it might be like to be caught up in a wildfire.
Students will enjoy the comic style of the writing and the images included in the book.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be comfortable reading graphic novels or comics. If this is a new genre, be sure to go over how to read each cell on a page.
Differentiation
Cross-curricular connections can be made in health classes that are considering how wildfires impact human health, or in social studies classes that are learning about governmental responses to wildfires.
This resource would make a great read-aloud for a whole-class activity. It would also be an impactful resource in a text-set about wildfires, made available to students learning about forests and wildfires.
After reading, have students create comic-style posters about wildfire prevention. There are several online tools available to create comics, which would be well suited to this resource.
Use this as a hook for lessons about wildfire ecology, natural fires, and the main causes of wildfires today.
Scientist Notes
This resource is a comic book from the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. The story follows two campers enjoying the outdoors. Other campers inadvertently leave a campfire still smoldering and the rest of the story revolves around the outcome of that one spark that escaped the campfire. This comic book would be a great addition to a classroom discussion about fire safety and personal responsibility.
Standards
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Literature (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.5 Analyze how an author's choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
HS-LS2-7 Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.7.9-12 Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.
