As we traveled across the United States and brought the film to communities, we heard from kids, teachers, professors, firefighters and experts about the need for curriculum focused on preparing homes and communities for wildfire. We met kids who performed their own home assessment after being inspired from watching the film. We decided to respond to the call and worked with experts to develop a curriculum for grades 6-12 that is is designed to accompany the documentary Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire.

The curriculum focuses on what all of us can do to design, build, retrofit and maintain our homes and communities to be fire-ready and fire-safe.  We incorporated the best information from the National Fire Protection Association, the United States Forest Service - Missoula Fire Lab, the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, Underwriters Laboratories: Fire Safety Research Institute, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and numerous experts in the field. 

All our lessons and activities within a module are designed both to build off one another or to stand alone. Essentially, you can teach them all together as a unit or pick and choose individual activities that will work for your classroom! We recommend you precede any lessons with the Crash Course and Introduction. All the lessons and activities listed below are in the document “Building Safety Module” and the page numbers listed below apply to that document. Each lesson/activity is also available to download separately. The Crash Course presentation must be downloaded separately.

Hoping to teach the whole module? Here is a suggested unit flow incorporating every lesson!

1 - Crash Course (p. 3) with optional presentation.

2 - Building Safety Introduction (p. 4)

3 - Ignition Prevention Inspection (p. 7)

4 - Middle (p. 11) or High School (p.19) Design, Build, and Burn