OpenSciEd Unit 6.5 · Lesson 10 · 10.A
Assessing Hazard Risk
Assessment guide
How to read student work on this assessment — standards alignment, what strong understanding looks like, and common gaps.
Learning progression
Target understanding
10.A Use digital tools to analyze patterns in large data sets (maps) of the history of natural hazards in regions and use this information to forecast future risk.
Standards alignment
10.A Use digital tools to analyze patterns in large data sets (maps) of the history of natural hazards in regions and use this information to forecast future risk.
What understanding looks like
Strong
- Students identify general regional patterns in different natural hazards.
- Students assess their local risk for various natural hazards.
- Will vary based on your local community.
- Students identify future risk for a local hazard.
- Response should include level of risk of a hazard, their ideas or experiences with severity or frequency of a hazard, and ideas for additional data they would need (e.g., how big or intense it could be, how fast it might happen, how well can people respond).
- Students should justify why it is important to communicate to a community about a natural hazard.
- Use Assessing Hazard Risk as an example for student ideas to look and listen for.
From Teacher Edition
View assessment opportunity →Facilitation guidance from the lesson plan — what to notice in student thinking and how to respond while teaching.
Building towards
10.A Use digital tools to analyze patterns in large data sets (maps) of the history of natural hazards in regions and use this information to forecast future risk.
What to look / listen for
Students identify general regional patterns in different natural hazards.
Example
A general pattern for coastal flooding would be limited to places along the coast only (and not anywhere interior to the United States), whereas thunderstorms show a pattern of greater risk in the eastern/central portion of the United States and Florida.
- Students assess their local risk for various natural hazards.
- Will vary based on your local community.
- Students identify future risk for a local hazard.
- Response should include level of risk of a hazard, their ideas or experiences with severity or frequency of a hazard, and ideas for additional data they would need (e.g., how big or intense it could be, how fast it might happen, how well can people respond).
- Students should justify why it is important to communicate to a community about a natural hazard.
- Use Assessing Hazard Risk as an example for student ideas to look and listen for.
What to do
For Question 1, model one hazard as a whole class to set the expectations for how groups should work through the remaining hazards. Talk aloud the general regional pattern you notice related to the hazard, including where it doesn’t happen often. For Questions 2 and 3, if students struggle to identify one hazard that their community is at risk for (or choose one from several natural hazards), have students group the hazards into high-, medium-, and low-risk categories (to help them prioritize higher risk hazards or tell them to highlight the natural hazards where the risk is moderate to very high for their community). Then, prompt students to consider their own experiences or wonderings about a hazard with which they are at higher risk for Question 2. For Question 3, students may choose any natural hazard but must identify a community at moderate to high risk and why a communication plan would be important based on the data.
Materials
Last updated from official OpenSciEd on 7/1/2026
Student handout
6.5 Lesson 10 Assessment Assessing Hazard Risk.docx
Google Form
Digitized — add an editable copy to your Google Forms
Teacher guide
6.5 Lesson 10 Teacher Edition.docx
Answer key (recommended)
6.5 Lesson 10 Answer Key Assessing Hazard Risk.docx