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	TODAY’S YOUTH RESPONDING TO TOMORROW’S DISASTERS Greg Owyang, Program Coordinator, San Francisco Fire Department Ring..ring..It’s the office phone. " Good morning, NERT training office, this is Greg". I receive a call from a Mr. Reed Russell. He introduces himself as a 9^th grade health education teacher at Lincoln High school, a local public school. He’s no different than the 50 calls per week inquiring about the free disaster training that is offered by the SFFD.
He heard about NERT training from a friend and he thought it would be a great idea if this program could be introduced to his freshman students, however he never took the training himself. I told Mr. Russell that to get an introductory experience of NERT it would be beneficial to be an observer at our last class, which is the actual hands-on training class. I gave him the graduation dates from the spring training schedule and told him to contact me after he attended the last class. This concept intrigued me, as I have always been involved with today’s youth, being a proud father of two teenagers and a year round sport coach. This would began another challenge / opportunity for the NERT training program. A futile attempt was tried several years ago to instruct high school students and the primary reason for its failure was that it was taught after school. The students didn’t want to be on campus any longer than necessary and it showed in their disinterest and lack of discipline. If we were to under take this pilot high school project this time, things would have to be structured differently. My next contact with Mr. Russell was the evening that he attended the hands-on class. He was so excited from what he just experienced in observing an adult NERT team in action applying their survival skills to "do the most good, for the most people". He, along with me, envisions the advantage of training today’s youth for tomorrow’s disasters. We put together a time schedule to instruct 90 students the complete NERT training in 11 days. We utilized the last two week of their school semester and taught every day replacing their health education curriculum with NERT training. The contents of the first five NERT classes were broken down into 10 – fifty minute classes. Each day the NERT instructors taught the same topic for three consecutive classes of thirty students each. This schedule gave us an opportunity to instruct a total of 90 students. I commend them as this was a difficult task and made for a very long day, but they came though with flying colors.
	For the hands-on class # 6, we use the students’ final exam day, which was 2 hour long. This gave them amble time to complete the evolution of the five different stations to practice their skills taught in the lectures. Mr. Russell was able to enlist the students enrolled in the drama class to volunteer to be moulage victims and try their acting skills. We were trying to get the entire school involved and raise their level of consciousness of being prepared. Maybe next time we’ll get the woodshop class to build props and stage sets mocking a disaster scenario.
Mr. Russell has received such an enthusiastic response from a core of students that they are in a process of forming an after school "NERT Club". Pending approval of the school district and fire department management, the long range plans are to instruct every incoming freshman class so that in four years, the entire school of 400 students will be NERT trained. Not only will this SF high school be ready for any disaster, so will each of these students, and hopefully their family and thus their community. NERT training offers an opportunity to learn lifetime practical skills as these teenagers progress to adulthood prepared to face tomorrow’s challenges.

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