CEHC Offers Emergency Management Primer to High School Students in Schenectady’s Rise High Program
Albany, N.Y. (March 10, 2022) – The College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity (CEHC) welcomed high school students from Schenectady’s Rise High program on Saturday to learn about the importance of emergency management.
Rise High is a program for Schenectady City youth where participants learn about an array of STEM fields and professional development skills in a fun and nurturing environment. Students are exposed to a wide variety of careers through hands-on, experiential learning activities.
DeeDee Bennett Gayle, an associate professor at CEHC whose expertise encompasses emergency management for socially vulnerable populations, hosted the 20 ninth-grade students during Saturday’s visit.
The students learned about who is involved in emergency management, different types of disasters, information and communication technologies used in disaster/crisis situations, and careers that overlap into the emergency management field.
CEHC Dean Robert Griffin offered welcome remarks. He was joined by Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences Chair Ryan Torn who provided a demonstration on weather-related disasters and a number of additional UAlbany faculty mentors.
“This is an exciting program that offers our potential future students with a unique opportunity to think about emergency management and learn from our faculty,” said Bennett Gayle. “People tend to not think about disasters until they are going through them, but through programs such as this one we are able to teach students that emergency managers are more proactive than reactive.”
Saturday’s visit took place inside UAlbany’s new ETEC building, a 246,000 square-foot, interdisciplinary research and development complex. It is the epicenter of many of the University’s signature research strengths including climate science, emergency preparedness and cybersecurity.
Students in the Rise High program were offered a tour of the building and access to its featured spaces such as the science-on-a-sphere room, CEHC makerspace and emergency preparedness situation room.
The group will return to ETEC this Saturday to complete the program’s two-day curriculum. It will culminate with a presentation of the students’ storyboards that showcase their ideas for ways technology can be used in decision-making, situational awareness, search and rescue, communications and hazard detection.