Search and Rescue comes to Matthew Moss

Dan, Hanaa Wahid, Kai Denatale, Sabah Khan, Jim, Gavin, Reece Rangeley, Lucy and Mike

On the 7 January learners from Matthew Moss had a specialised session in International Search and Rescue. The sessions where delivered by Greater Manchester Fire Service who gave real life tutorials on how to search and rescue after a natural disaster.

Jim, Dan, Mike and Gavin from Greater Manchester Fire Service have first-hand experience of how the earth creates violent disasters and their impact on people. They were able to share their experiences and really bring conceptualise a difficult subject to learn. They explained how natural disasters are managed and what responses the UK make to terrible natural events. They gave individual sessions on; dog handling and rescue, the use of cameras and technology to aid rescue, and also the use of numeracy to calculate the weight of concrete when rescuing casualties In very practical ways.

During the visit a 'Mini Haiti' experience was created in the 4D learning space in the school hall. The activities ran all day and enabled all year 8 learners to experience and understand further the impacts and responses to natural disasters. The learners really enjoyed meeting a real rescue dog called Lucy, where Mike the dog’s handler spoke about his own personal experience in Haiti and how Dog Handlers are often first on the scene. Learners also investigated hidden objects using specialised cameras with Gavin and Dan. They explained how this stage would be the next step in search and rescue. Students also got the opportunity to explore how numeracy is important in the real world, as Jim demonstrated how they have to use mental maths to calculate the weight of blocks of concrete before using specialist equipment to lift rubble off a casualty.

The event as enjoyed by all students and was very successfully in get the message across, as demonstrated by a student comment: “The whole idea of these activities were so we could see what actually happening in the event of an earthquake, for example when the buildings collapses people were buried under the rubble and the rescue team couldn’t necessarily see that people where under there, so they use dogs and tiny cameras to locate people. Then they have to use lots of maths to make sure they don’t hurt the victim that is trapped."

Watch Manager Jim Mawdsley said: “Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service are always looking to engage with the communities we serve, this is a fantastic example of how we can share our specialist skills and knowledge to help children understand how we manage natural disasters and carry out rescues.

“The 4D learning space at Matthew Moss enabled us to create a safe but realistic environment, which replicated the scenes of devastation faced by rescue workers responding to the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.

“It is now five years since Greater Manchester personnel were sent to assist in the rescue mission in Haiti, since then teams from Manchester have also been deployed to Japan in 2011 following a Tsunami and Bosnia 2014 following large scale flooding.”

The visit tied in with year 8 learners who are carrying out a Violent Earth Project which explores; the natural violent earth such as earthquakes and volcanoes; the impact of violent humans with the likes of the holocaust and genocide, finishing with writing peace campaigns on how to make the world a better place.

The geographical elements of the project have enabled learners to understand the structure of the earth, the different plate boundaries and the impacts of particular natural disasters that have occurred around the earth.

Matthew Moss would like to thank Greater Manchester Fire Service and especially Jim, Mike, Gavin and Dan. We look forward to engaging with this event again in the future.