ASSIGNMENT
You will select a significant incident (or Issue), disaster, movement, (SIDM) etc..that has occurred within the last three years from the start date of this course. You will examine the city and state where it occurred in order to analyze what could be have been done better to prevent or mitigate harm. This means your topic must be narrowed to a particular region or locale. By doing this you will begin to understand how to work with the community stakeholders before, during, and after the SIDM event.
This cannot be a topic either whole or in part utilized for any other paper in any other course. Remember that you must submit this paper to the Turnitin Drop Box. Trust that high similarity scores will simply not be accepted and/or will be graded accordingly in conjunction with this assignment
Final papers must, without exception, follow the format below. Include the following headings in your Final Paper: Introduction, Background/History, Analysis, Alternatives, Recommendations, Conclusion. Failure to follow this required outline and respond to the content specified therein will result in significant point loss.
I. Introduction
In this section you should specifically identify and define the SIDM etc..that has occurred within the last three years from the start date of this course.
and clearly outline its importance/significance. You can also use this section to limit the issue (i.e., describe the aspects of the issue that you will not touch upon). Remember this issue must be geographically narrowed in order to successfully proceed through the outline.
II. Background/History
In this section you should briefly describe the history of the issue, literature review, trends and its current status. You can also provide context by describing relevant developments in other localities, states or countries. Using the literature, identify and define the principles and strategies of your topic that create attention toward it.
III. Analysis
This will be your longest and most comprehensive section. Here you should get to the heart of the matter. You must contrast the roles played by different levels of government, international, and volunteer organizations in their response to counter and combat your specific topic; differentiate between ethical and unethical attitudes and actions; identify the characteristics, ideologies, motives and behaviors of the various stakeholders, media groups, etc.. associated with your topic; understand how the emergency management related organization is lead and managed as it applies to your topic.
Some very specific requirements for this section are as follows:
You must develop a profile of the community in which you are focusing on.
You must do some research into the community itself and determine demographics including but not limited to researching what media outlets are in the community you have written about. Compare/Contrast the media involvement positives and negatives via academic sources. Incorporate what you have learned about how the media works into your analysis, and think of better and more creative ways that those groups could have been leveraged.
You must analyze how effective the preparations in the community were/are, while putting yourself in the shoes of an Emergency Manager who needs to teach the stakeholders what to do to prevent or mitigate against the damage they suffered in the past and could again in the future.
You must analyze the stakeholder demographics in the area and why these groups matter to the SIDM.
You must analyze how effective the preparations in the community were before the SIDM and propose better ways to reach stakeholders or communicate to them which would motivate them to mobilize and protect themselves.
IV. Alternatives
Most Issues have some alternatives. In some cases there may be essentially two options (“yes, we should do this”, and “no, we should not”). With each alternative you must also
specifically describe advantages and disadvantages of the proposed alternative.
V. Recommendations/Conclusion
In this section you have an opportunity to provide limited personal reflection on your topic, insofar as recommendations toward improvement of current practices are concerned. You must be specific about how you reached your conclusions and on what evidence you based your recommendation. Summarize your paper and wrap up with some closing comments.
