SCEC INSTANeT News
	Peggy Brutsche: American Red Cross Masters of Disaster Curriculum

With 20 years experience in disaster preparedness, Peggy Brutsche is currently Disaster Director for the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Red Cross. She is responsible for the chapter's delivery of services to disaster victims - from small daily incidents to major regional disasters. In her first years with the chapter, Peggy specialized in disaster planning and preparedness, community education, and training for paid and volunteer staff. During a four year assignment to special post-Loma Prieta earthquake projects in the Bay Area, she orchestrated the design and delivery of disaster education programs for a variety of audiences, including low-income, low-English-literacy populations. Ms. Brutsche has served as guest faculty for the National Emergency Training Center and the California Specialized Training Institute. She was a member of a City of Los Angeles delegation to Japan's earthquake preparedness activities in 1985, and a presenter at the International Symposium on Earthquake Countermeasures in China in 1988. Prior to her service with the American Red Cross, Ms. Brutsche was Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for a Southern California city, and worked in purchasing and inventory control for several small manufacturing companies.   Masters of Disaster Curriculum View a video clip (4 minutes, 54 seconds) from Ms. Brutsche's presentation (Real Player required) From the American Red Cross Masters of Disaster website: The American Red Cross has developed a curriculum that not only teaches students about disaster safety, but helps teachers meet their required objectives as well! We know that teachers have a lot to cover to meet the learning objectives prescribed by their school system. That's why we've developed the Masters of Disaster curriculum--to help teachers integrate important disaster safety instruction into their regular core subjects such as language arts, math, science, and social studies. This is not additional material for teachers to work into an already packed school day. Rather, the Masters of Disaster curriculum supplements the lessons teachers are already teaching. At the same time it provides students with information to help them prepare for disasters and stay safe during and after a disaster in their home, school, or community. How does this work? The Masters of Disaster Curriculum Kit contains ready-to-go lesson plans, activities, and demonstrations on disaster-related topics that teachers can incorporate within core subject areas. For example, a teacher can show students how to plot latitude and longitude on a map by using the curriculum's lesson on how to track a hurricane, or augment instruction on the water cycle with activities in the lessons on floods. Or a teacher working with students on word recognition and decoding will choose to use the vocabulary section of the curriculum. While strengthening students' core academic skills in science, math, social studies, and language arts (including reading, word comprehension, and spelling), the Masters of Disaster curriculum educates them about hazards that cause injury, death, and damage in the United States. The materials are designed for flexibility, so that teaching teams can integrate hazard-related lessons into the core academic subjects. The curriculum focuses on-- General disaster preparedness Hurricanes Floods Tornadoes Lightning Earthquakes For more information, visit the American Red Cross Masters of Disaster website.

Phone 213/740-5843 Fax 213/740-0011 e-mail: SCECinfo@usc.edu