Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes	Part A: Are bushfires getting worse?
30 minutes	Part B: Plotting data for comparison
20 minutes	Reflection

Part A: Are bushfires getting worse?

Step 1.

As a class, discuss: ‘Are bushfires getting worse?’

The answer to this question could be quite different depending on where your class is located in Australia.

Students will likely be quite anecdotal in their evaluation here, and that’s fine, as the point of this lesson is to find and use evidence to answer this question.

However, one point you might like to draw out from students is that climate change is likely to mean the answer is ‘yes’. But more on that later.

Step 2.

What do we mean by worse? Can students come up with a way to accurately compare one bushfire event to another?

Allow students to make some of their own suggestions, or prompt them with the points below. For each way of measuring the ‘worseness’ of fires, discuss some of the considerations we’d have to keep in mind if using that data as a point of comparison.

The following factors could be considered in whether or not bushfires have gotten worse:

How many people died or been seriously injured (fatalities).

Do we think more or less people might have died in the past, or closer to the present?
What if we are better at putting out fires and saving people?
What if people don’t live in the areas where the fires are?

People can also suffer serious injuries trying to escape or fight a fire, and these injuries can be short or long term. Smoke from the Black Summer fires causes other illnesses in people down the track. People can also suffer mental health issues after a traumatic emergency.

How many houses were destroyed or seriously damaged (property damage).

Do we think more or less houses might have burned down in the past, or closer to the present?
Would there have been more or less houses in the past, compared to the present?
What if we are better at putting out fires and saving houses?
What if people don’t live in the areas where the fires are?

People can often be left homeless because their house is unlivable if not outright destroyed. They can be homeless for months or years as a result.

‘How ‘big’ the fire is (severity).

What do we mean by ‘big’?
- The height of the flames?
- The spread of the area the fire burns?
- How many days it burns for?
- How many firefighters it takes to extinguish it, or how much water?
Do we think reports of fires in the past are trustworthy? (This is a big point - remind students about primary and secondary sources and that it may have been harder to be accurate about fires in 1851, for example).

How ‘many’ fires we have (frequency).

Do we think we are having more fires recently compared to the past?
Is it possible we think there have been more fires recently just because these are the ones we’ve heard about?

Part B: Plotting data for comparison

Step 1.

In order to accurately answer this question, we’re going to have to compare some data.

To do this, we’re going to create some graphs.

Step 2.

Give students the ‘List of major fire events per state and in Australia over time.’ Students will require the pages relating to major fire events in their own state, as well as the final table, which is a list of all major fire events in Australia over time.

Provisions for learning extension:

The AIDR has a fantastic interactive tool that maps a variety of disasters across Australia and time. While we recommend using the more scaffolded data sheet provided, this site is a great tool for extending students and asking them to collate their own data. Students could look at plotting floods or other disasters of their choosing.

Step 3.

The first graph is going to be a column graph titled ‘Severity of fire events in (state) over time in Acres burned’.

This graph will compare how much land was subjected to fire damage during this event.

For this graph, we will be using the data from your state.

Remind students of the basic principles of graphs - that axes should be ruled straight, data points should be accurately positioned, and an appropriate scale should be used. For this graph we recommend:

Y-Axis - Acres burned. 1cm = 100,000 acres. (You may need to show students how to divide by 100,000 to get a new value for this graph).
X-Axis - Time in years. Alternatively, this could be the name of the fire event.

Provisions for learning support:

You may want to limit students to only plotting 5 or so fire events.

Here is an example graph:

Learning extensions:

Students might plot the fatalities or houses burned as well if they have time.

Step 4.

The second graph is going to be a column graph titled ‘Frequency of fire events in Australia over time’.

This graph will show when, throughout history, Australia has experienced major fire events.

First, we’ll need to find out how many fires occurred in each decade.

Students can create a second table from the data in the datasheet.

For example:

Decade	Number of fires
1850 - 1860	1
1860 - 1970	0
etc

For this graph we recommend:

Y-Axis - Number of fires. 1cm = 1 fire.
X-Axis - Decade.

Here is an example graph:

Reflection: Comparing data and drawing conclusions

Step 1.

As a class, give students an opportunity to draw any conclusions from the graphs and the tables of data. As they go, ask students to support their conclusions with evidence.

You can then steer students towards these conclusions:

Fatalities don’t seem to be a good way to measure if bushfires are getting worse. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between bushfires and deaths, even though some of the worst bushfires in history did result in a lot of deaths. This could be for a number of reasons. Maybe people weren’t living in the bushfire areas, or maybe they evacuated in time. The lessons from Black Saturday meant that we no longer tell people to shelter in the bath or stay and protect. The key message in the past has been 'stay and protect'... the intensity of the fires now means that we now encourage people to 'leave and leave early’. So, we have become better at warnings and evacuations, hopefully leading to fewer fatalities.
Houses burned doesn’t seem to be a good way to measure if bushfires are getting worse. Again, maybe there just weren’t any houses in the area, or maybe they were saved by brave firefighters.
Acres burned seems to suggest that bushfires aren’t getting worse. At least in Victoria. Black Saturday, considered one of our worst ever bushfires, burned a little over a million acres of bushland. Compare that to double the area just a few years before in the Great Divides bushfires, and triple that in 2003. And not to mention the absolutely huge bushfire in 1851 which burned over a million acres!
Finally, let’s look at our graph of 'Frequency of fire events in Australia over time'. Major fire events are becoming more frequent. Dramatically so. Could this be because we didn’t accurately record fires in the early part of last century? Maybe. But it seems pretty clear that we are having far more fires in the 2000s alone than in most of the 1900s combined.

Step 2.

There are lots of other conclusions you could potentially draw from this data, but this is the major one we want to focus on. We call this a trend. The number of major fire events is increasing.

This is also confirmed in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report . They have performed a large number of studies, and state that extreme weather events (ie: major bushfires) are going to increase in severity and frequency into the future as a result of climate change.

Step 3.

So where does this leave us?

Reassure students that being prepared saves lives. Knowing that more bushfires are coming means that we can prepare ourselves in a number of ways to be resilient when bushfires do impact us.

Teacher reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn’t work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Resilient Australia - Are Bushfires Getting Worse Over Time?

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