Sixth-graders
educate others on severe weather, safety
Staff photo/Kathy McCarty
KASEY HALEY, a sixth-grader at Presque Isle Middle School, hands a local child a severe weather brochure at the Star City’s Memorial Day parade. The students created the preparedness guides as part of a recent KIDS Consortium service-learning project. Looking on are, from left, students Skyler Ellis, Jessica Boucher and Sydney Craig.
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
PRESQUE ISLE — While severe weather doesn’t happen frequently in central Aroostook County, it does happen; and sixth-graders at Presque Isle Middle School want community members — and students — to be safe when it does.
As part of a recent KIDS Consortium service-learning project, students in Erin Hoffses’ and Casey Johnson’s classes identified that the area has experienced some severe weather events in recent years that some people felt unprepared for such as tornadoes and last summer’s tropical storm Irene, as well as several instances of straight-line winds, also called microbursts or violent winds that move in a straight path.
To help educate the public about these weather situations, the students devised two projects: creating a brochure that was handed out at Presque Isle’s Memorial Day parade, and holding a Severe Weather Fair at the middle school that was attended by fifth-graders at Zippel and Mapleton elementary schools.
Preparedness guide
One group of students spent several weeks creating a preparedness guide, or brochure, on topics such as blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. One brochure was designed specifically for children, while a second one was geared toward adults.
“We thought that people in Presque Isle weren’t prepared for severe weather or didn’t know enough about it to keep safe,” said Nechelle Dias, “so we wanted to make something that could help them. We figured that some kids wouldn’t understand all the big words that we put in the adult brochure, so we made one with simpler words for them to understand.”
The brochures tell what the individual severe weather event is, when it typically occurs, what signs to look for, and what to do to keep safe during the event.
“We had to write down information on a piece of paper and then our teachers typed it into a brochure,” said Devin Ireland. “I researched thunderstorms for the children’s brochure. Thunderstorms was my first choice; I’ve always wanted to figure out if lightning came from the clouds or the ground.”
“My group researched hurricanes,” said Dias. “Some of the information we used came from our science book and some came from guest speakers that we had come in and speak to us.”
Once the brochures were printed, one group of students helped fold them, while the other helped plan a float that was in the Memorial Day parade.
“We spent half a class and two study halls folding the brochures,” said Ireland. “There were a lot of them. Handing them out at the parade was a way for more people to get the information.”
“We made all the decorations. We had a severe weather TV with an antenna on it, and we made little cutouts of all the types of severe weather and those were put on the Jeep that we used,” Dias said. “We walked the whole parade route and handed out brochures to both adults and kids. Every single person I gave a brochure to had a nice reaction and they all said ‘thank you.’
“I think we did a really good job overall,” she said. “Everyone worked really hard and it feels good knowing that we did something that could help save somebody’s life.”
Severe weather fair
On May 31, area fifth-graders attended a severe weather fair at PIMS where they listened to 10-minute student presentations on hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, thunderstorms, wind and flooding. One group of sixth-graders presented in the art room, while a second group presented similar topics in the cafeteria.
Student Jaida Beaulieu and her group discussed flooding.
“We created the presentation, made a trifold that had pictures on it, and we showed the fifth-graders a couple of videos,” she said. “We were asked by our teachers to list our top three choices to present on and I chose flooding. I’ve always loved learning about floods; it’s just an interest of mine.
“We’ve been working on this for about three months,” said Beaulieu, noting that the majority of the work was done in school. “We got our information and pictures from magazines and the National Geographic website. Our teachers also helped us find the videos online.”
Beaulieu said she enjoyed presenting to the fifth-graders.
“We definitely got tired, but it was really, really fun because they actually listened,” she said. “One of the things that I learned while doing this project was that anywhere that rain falls, it can flood. It doesn’t matter if it’s here or in Florida; it can flood anywhere.”
Austin Moreau was one of the students who presented about wind.
“Through the learning process and experience, I’ve learned that everything that happens with weather — including wind — can be dangerous,” he said. “Wind can happen with hurricanes and tornadoes, but I didn’t think wind by itself was all that dangerous, but it is.”
Moreau and his group found most of their information online.
“It was fun presenting to the younger students,” he said. “A few people came up to me at the end of it and said that they learned a lot from it, so that made it worthwhile. This project was all about safety, and it was our job to help teach them how to be safe.
“The most important thing people should do if you’re in a microburst is to lie down flat. With wind, if you’re standing up, you can get blown back, so it’s best to be on the ground because you can’t fall over,” said Moreau. “I advise that people do not get in a car because if the wind is strong enough, the car could get blown around or a tree could fall on it. If you have a chance to go inside, that would be best, but make sure it’s a sturdy building because sometimes pressure can build in the house and then the roof could blow off and the house will collapse.”
Moreau encourages everyone to be prepared for a severe weather emergency by having a survival kit handy.
“Store it with food, water, clothing, a flashlight, a blanket and a radio so you can listen to the warnings and advisories,” he said. “Just be safe.”
Additional severe weather brochures can soon be found at both the Presque Isle City Hall and Mapleton Town Office.
