Students Create Powerful PSA to Discuss Natural Disaster Safety

Natural disasters can strike when anyone least expects it, but one group of young LaRue County students are hoping to better prepare the community.

Matt Murray’s ALES students recently created their own Public Service Announcements (PSAs) that detailed facts, effects and safety precautions for a natural disaster of their choosing.

Murray said the goal was to help students conduct research from multiple sources, pick out relevant information and then effectively present their research.

“The students were presented with passages about natural disasters from the teacher, but were also tasked with exploring digital sources such as the National Geographic for Kids website to supplement their research,” Murray said. “The students were expected to read and identify relevant information within the texts that the public would need to know to stay safe during a natural disaster.”

Murray said the students connected with this project in a special way.

“Natural disasters are interesting to kids anyway, but combining that with creating online videos made this one of the most engaging lessons I’ve ever created,” Murray said.

Kentucky has had its fair share of natural disasters to intrigue students. Flooding, ice storms, and tornadoes have reshaped the state and entire communities for decades. Most famously, the 2021 Mayfield tornadoes ripped through the western part of the state, making national headlines and ultimately becoming inspiration for the final scenes of 2024’s Twisters movie.

Connecting the natural disasters to the community via communication was another key goal for Murray’s students. Murray said the project reached both the Collaborative Communication and Engaged Citizenship portions of the LaRue County Schools Learner Profile.

“In order to be a collaborative communicator, the students would learn how to take relevant safety information and present it to a wide audience,” Murray said. “The students created a video with their laptop and uploaded it to the web to accomplish this. The students understood that researching safety information and presenting it to our community made them engaged citizens.”

One student said that communication was a shining part of the project.

“I liked how I got to announce the things I learned about and it felt like I was helping people stay safe,” said ALES student Ilee C.