Presented by: Erin Leckey

Communities in Colorado are increasingly experiencing disruptions from fire, flood, drought and extreme heat. With this rise in hazardous events, there is a pressing need for communities increase their resilience to these risk conditions. Here we describe a youth and community engagement project that aims to inspire steps towards community resilience in rural areas that can be adapted for communities across the west, with teachers and students acting as change agents. The youth engagement component will include four immersive, scenario-based, role-play games focused on fire, flood, drought and extreme heat. Participating middle and high school students will choose a locally relevant natural hazard scenario and learn about existing mitigation and response plans to that hazard. After developing a shared knowledge base around their community’s history with the hazard, students play the hazard game. Through the course of the game, students assess the aspects of their community that contribute to resiliency, identify where additional efforts may be needed, and explore roles for themselves in facilitating their community’s hazard response. Building on their role-play experience, students identify and develop real-world resilience strategies for their communities and present their ideas at a community Resilience Expo. Students are also encouraged to develop their ideas into action with mini-grants that are awarded to realize the students’ vision for increasing resilience in their community.