In the Eye of the Storm: A Participatory Course on Coastal Storms

Storm disasters are amplified in the coastal environment due to population pressures and the power of the sea. The upper-division/graduate university course Coastal Storms was designed to equip future practitioners with the skills necessary to understand, respond to, and mitigate for these natural disasters. To accomplish this, Coastal Storms integrates active learning approaches, namely literature discussions, GIS labs, and field excursions. Further, the pedagogical model employed aligns the course objectives with fundamental geographic principles: understanding of geographic patterns, awareness of social-physical interactions, and capacity for geographic writing. Informal evaluation of Coastal Storms suggests that the course objectives are being met. Finally, the overall intent of describing the pedagogy of this particular course is so it can be used as a model for shaping the future of hazards courses in geography programs.