Geography - Year 5

Bushfires and Floods in Australia

Download an editable Year 5 geography slideshow on bushfires and floods, covering where they happen, their impacts and how communities prepare and recover.

Subject: Geography
Year group: Year 5
Curriculum topic: Managing severe weather events in Australian environments
Editable download: PPTX

About this resource

Built for a clear, classroom-ready lesson.

This complete lesson takes students from where bushfires and floods are most likely to occur through to how people prepare, respond and recover. Impacts are separated into the natural environment, built places and people's lives, and the preparedness sequence covers knowing your risk, making a plan, packing key items and following trusted warnings.

Use the slideshow as supplied or edit the PowerPoint to reflect the hazards in your own area. Discussion prompts, an ordering activity and a household emergency plan task each have answer slides, so you can draw the class back together before students write independently.

Teaching notes

This topic is a lived experience for many students, so it's worth checking who in your class may have been directly affected before you teach it. The slides are deliberately factual rather than dramatic, and the emphasis throughout is on preparation and recovery rather than damage.

The "what might a community notice first" discussion works well before the impacts slides, since students usually raise roads, power and animals unprompted. For the emergency plan task, students can use their own household as the context, or work from a fictional one if that would be more comfortable. If your school is in a bushfire or flood-prone area, the real local warning sources are a natural addition to the "stay informed" step.

Learning objectives

Describe where bushfires and floods are most likely to happen in Australia and why.
Explain the impacts on the natural environment, built places and people's lives.
Identify how people prepare for, respond to and recover from an emergency.