Undergraduate NanoCert® in Disaster Management Fundamentals

This course covers the basic principles of natural disaster management in the United States. This course highlights several hazard types as topical investigations, as well as the processes and considerations of management options for preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. This will include, but not be limited to, understanding basic natural hazard mechanisms, the range of physical and human impacts, linkages to demographic and environmental transitions, and both structural and non-structural mitigation techniques. All management techniques are framed within existing U.S. federal guidelines, however management techniques covered in this course may be applied widely. The course covers organization, operations, training, and other issues associated with the management of natural disasters. The student will participate in a simulation taking on a decision-making role and must react to information about a specific natural disaster that develops over a series of weeks. The students will be presented with a series of weather-related information and will be assigned a specific role. They must make leadership decisions on how they will utilize their resources responding regularly to the incident commander (course professor) explaining what actions need to be carried out along with their rationale for their actions. Wrapping up the scenario, a Hot Wash is conducted with three UP (good) things and three DOWN (need improvement) things and provided to the incident commander so that the student will be able to better handle the next disaster as a lessons-learned phase.

This course covers managerial issues in hazardous materials. The impact hazardous materials have on humans, wildlife, and the environment will be covered. The major laws that are applicable to hazardous materials at the Federal, State, and local levels will be discussed. The student will learn about writing an effective contingency plan and the importance of coordination and collaboration across multiple agencies when dealing with a hazardous material response. This course examines all facets of hazardous materials including regulatory issues, hazard analysis, multi-agency contingency planning, response personnel, multi-agency response resources, agency policies, procedures and implementation, public education and emergency information systems, health and safety, command post dynamics, strategic and tactical considerations, recovery and termination procedures, and program evaluation.

This course addresses the potential results from nuclear, biological, and chemical incidents or uses. Topics include public health consequences of such incidents, emergency planning and response measures in place among U.S. agencies, and emerging detection and management technologies. Existing vulnerabilities to these types of incidents and attacks will also be discussed. Objectives of the course include identification of the historical development and use of chemical and biological weapons; definition of the types of chemical and biological weapons and their impacts; analysis of case studies related to the development and use of chemical and biological weapons, and research on chemical and biological warfare.