Hi, my name is Solmas Muhajer. I'm a PhD student at the University of Tübingen in Germany.

This video module is going to be on non-structural hazards. Do you know what non-structural hazards are? If not, don't worry. I'm going to take you somewhere. So why don't you just follow me? Welcome to my office. This is where I sit during the day working. As you can see, everything is within my reach.

I have my keyboard, I have the monitors, I have books and notebooks behind me. I also have a series of heavy batteries here waiting to be charged. I also have a few pieces of furniture in my office. I have this sturdy desk with some spacing underneath it. I have my file cabinet. Notice that it has wheels underneath it.

I also have a big cabinet to my right. This is where I store my field gear. And most importantly, I have my coffee maker here right on the shelf, which keeps me energized during the day. So you may be wondering why I'm pointing out all these elements to you. Well, these elements are all non-structural elements.

Non-structural elements of a building are everything in the building, including all of its content and furnishing, except the main structure itself. That means everything but the foundation, the ceiling, the load-bearing walls, the columns, the beams. So pretty much everything but the main structure.

So you may be wondering why I'm pointing this out to you. Well, I'm pointing out these elements to you because during an earthquake, these elements could potentially fall and cause injuries to people. So you may say, well, if during an earthquake a building is going to collapse anyway,

why am I going to worry about these non-structural elements? Shouldn't I just worry about structural elements? Well, let me tell you that it has been documented that in most urban earthquakes, these are earthquakes that affect populated areas like cities, more than 50% of injuries and losses are associated with non-structural elements of a building.

That's more than half, which is quite a lot. So it's really important to know what these elements are, how they can pose hazards to us, and what we can do to mitigate damage associated with them. Now, you may wonder, well, where do we start?

How do we do this? Well, in this video, you're going to learn how to identify these elements, learn what kind of hazards they pose, and what you can do about them. So why don't you take a few minutes, work individually or in groups, and take a look at all the non-structural elements in my office.

That is the ones that you see. Then I want you to think about those that are going to cause me an injury during an earthquake. Think about items that could shift or move around, items that could tip over and potentially hurt me. Once you create a list of all these elements, think about the top three most dangerous ones and draw a red circle around them and discuss these items among yourselves and why you chose them.

And then we will come back to discuss them with you.

Welcome back. So how many non-structural hazards were you able to identify in my office? I hope not too many. If you ask me to identify the top three most dangerous ones to me, I would say, yeah, maybe this coffee maker.

It's sitting right above my head. It's not attached to the shelf. This means during shaking, it can easily tip over and collapse and potentially hurt me, most likely in the head, which is not very good. Another item that I'm worried about is this file cabinet to my left.

As I pointed out earlier, it has wheels attached to it. This means during shaking, it can easily move and it can move very rapidly. What if it crashes to me? It can cause injury. Another item that I'm worried about, it could be this file cabinet. Well, it is not really a file cabinet, but this is where I store my gear. It's not attached to the floor, and when I look at it carefully from behind,

I also notice that it's not attached to the wall. It's heavy, it's bulky, it's really big. So during shaking, it can fall over and definitely hurt me. Even worse than that, it can trap me inside of my office because the exit door is right behind this camera. So if this thing falls over, I'm just going to be on this side of the room

and not be able to cross and get out of the building after an earthquake. So now that we've had a chance to take a look at all the nonstructural elements in my office and identify those that are hazardous to me, why don't you go on a hazard hunt in your own classroom? This means you will do the same thing to your classroom as you did to my office.

First, create a list of all nonstructural elements in your classroom. Again, remember, these are everything in your classroom except the main structure itself. After you've done that, think about those that are going to be dangerous to you during shaking. Place a red mark next to them.

Then draw a circle around the top three most dangerous nonstructural elements in your classroom. Then talk about why you've chosen those items. You can do this individually, in groups, and discuss your answers with your teacher and with your classmates. And we'll come back to see how you did.

Hi, welcome back. How many nonstructural hazards were you able to identify in your classroom?

Remember, these could be anything like the windows, the light fixtures, blackboard, whiteboard. It could even be the furnishing inside of your classroom, like the desks, the chairs. Other items, such as decorative items, flower pots if you have them in your classroom, bookshelves, equipment, a computer.

These could also be nonstructural hazards in a classroom. Now, I cannot see your classroom, so why don't I show you a picture of a classroom that I have visited and point out some of the nonstructural hazards in that classroom. But you have to give me a few seconds because I have to load that picture up and show it on a screen behind me.

So give me a second. So here I have a picture I took several years ago when I was visiting a school in China. And you might not see me, but that's okay. All you need to pay attention to is this stick. So I'm going to point out to some of the nonstructural hazards that I have identified in this classroom.

One obvious one is this TV that you can see here. It's hanging from the wall, and if it's not secured well, it can collapse and can hurt students or the teacher. Another item that could pose a hazard to students is the blackboard itself, if it's not secured to the wall behind it.

Other items that are very dangerous are the light fixers. You can see a number of them hanging from the ceiling, including fans. During earthquake, these light fixtures can shake, can swing back and forth.

They can even hit each other and shatter everywhere. So it's very important to make sure that these light fixtures and the fans are secured so that they won't swing back and forth or cause danger to the students. Of course, all the chairs and the tables here could move during an earthquake and potentially crash into the students.

Another item that could move and cause danger is the podium here. This is where the teacher normally stands to give lectures. Notice that there are five cabinets next to the podium. If they are not secured to the floor, they could also move around and crash into people and cause injuries.

One item that really worries me is the door. Do you see anything wrong with it? Well, the door opens to the inside of the classroom. This can be really dangerous because a lot of the times, as students try to open the door and leave the classroom, they could actually get trapped behind it if the door is locked or has been damaged.

That means that the students won't have a way of leaving the classroom and reaching a safe space after an earthquake if they need to evacuate. Now that you've seen some of the non-structural hazards associated with this classroom, perhaps you

can see some that are very similar to those that you identified in your own classroom. Now, give me a moment to turn on the lights because I have a task for you to do. Now, take a look at the list you have compiled of all the non-structural hazards in your own classroom and look at them very carefully.

I want you to identify those items that can be fixed for free. That means at no cost you can completely remove the hazards associated with those items. Take a few minutes. You can work individually or in groups. Identify those that can be fixed without any cost and talk among yourselves why those items can be fixed so easily and at no cost.

We'll come back to see how you did.

Let's think about some of the non-structural hazards that you saw in the photo that I showed you from the school in China. As you might have noticed, some of these hazards can be completely removed at no cost. Let's take a minute and pull that photo on the screen again so that we can discuss the items that can be fixed easily and at no cost.

Let's take a closer look at the photograph from the classroom in China. It's going to cost, I think, quite a lot to fix elements such as light fixtures and fans. It requires special expertise and will cost a lot. Let's take a look at non-structural hazards that can be eliminated at no cost.

If I had to guess, I would start maybe with the television here. Is there a particular reason to keep the television so high above the floor that it can potentially cause danger if it falls during shaking? Perhaps one way to reduce hazard associated with the television here is to move it a little bit closer to the floor

so it doesn't have to fall a great distance and hurt students during shaking. One way to do that is to have a cabinet or a shelf that is attached to the wall or to the floor with the television attached to the cabinet. Other hazards that can be removed, for instance, is this podium, the teacher's podium.

Is this podium absolutely needed in the classroom? If it is not needed and it doesn't serve a great purpose, it can be removed from the classroom entirely. And by just removing the podium from the classroom, you create more space in the classroom and also you eliminate the hazard.

Of course, you can anchor down the podium to the floor, but that will cost you a little bit. If you don't want to pay for anything, you can just simply remove the podium from the classroom. Any decorative items such as photo frames or things that you can see here in the photo on the wall can be completely removed from the walls.

But if you want to hold on to those, you can still keep them on the wall. But you can make sure that they won't fall over during shaking by using a special type of glue that can attach them to the wall behind them. Now let's take a look at this photo again. There are non-structural elements here that can be hazardous to students during shaking of an earthquake.

Now some of these hazards can be mitigated or eliminated at some cost. For instance, take a look at the blackboard here. It might look to you that it is attached to the wall, but it is not. It is hanging from a hook from up here. This means that during the shaking, the blackboard can actually move away from the wall and if

the teacher is standing here or if there are students here, the blackboard could potentially knock them over. This is quite dangerous. Now this issue can be fixed. You can purchase very simple, easily obtainable materials that can anchor down the blackboard to the wall so that it won't swing away from the wall during shaking.

This won't cost much and it doesn't require a lot of expertise to know how to attach the blackboard to the wall. Some of the non-structural hazards that you can see in the classroom, in order for them to be mitigated or completely removed, you need to have access to special equipment and to an expert who can actually fix them.

For instance, take a look at these light fixtures. As I pointed out earlier, during an earthquake, they can swing back and forth. They can crash into each other and the glass can shatter. One way to reduce hazards associated with these light fixtures is to fix them to the ceiling instead of having them hang over the heads of the students.

This may not cost a lot, but it is something that we can do to reduce hazards associated with light fixtures. Now that we've noticed that some non-structural hazards can be easily and at no cost eliminated or reduced, and some non-structural hazards require some special expertise and maybe some costs associated with them,

why don't you take a look at the list of non-structural hazards that you can apply for your own classroom. And in working groups, try to figure out the ones that will require a little bit of cost and the ones that will require a lot of costs.

And then we'll come back to see how you did.

Hi, welcome back. How did you do? I hope that you noticed that there are non-structural elements in your classroom that can be mitigated at no cost. But you also noticed that there are some non-structural elements in your classroom that require special expertise and some costs. But don't worry about it. There are experts out there that they can identify these non-structural elements and help you mitigate or fix them.

Now today you are going to be one of those experts. Your teacher is going to give you a handout like this. You're going to break into groups and you're going to use this handout as a checklist for non-structural elements in your classroom. You will walk around and answer questions that are written on this handout.

The answers are yes or no to those questions. So you will place a checkmark into the yes box or a no box relevant to each question. If there are questions that you're not sure about, simply write, I don't know. If there are questions that are not shown on this list but you think they should be added, feel free to go ahead and add them to the list.

If there are questions on this list that seems irrelevant to you because you don't have those non-structural elements in your classroom, don't worry about them. Just skip them. This handout is a checklist that many experts use to identify non-structural hazards in classrooms or other spaces.

Now take a minute, break into groups and walk around the classroom looking at the elements in your classroom and answer these questions. We will come back to see how you did.

Welcome back. How did you do? What you just did is called rapid visual screening. Use a checklist to quickly identify hazards associated with non-structural elements in your classroom.

This is exactly the same technique as many experts use to identify hazards really quickly. Know that identifying hazards is the very first step in order to mitigate damage associated with them. Once these hazards are identified, one needs to think about how to eliminate or reduce damage associated with them.

No special expertise is required to reduce some of these hazards, you might have noticed. But you also notice that some of these hazards require special expertise. But don't worry about them because there are people out there that you can contact. Sometimes you yourself can gain those skills because some of these skills are not very difficult to gain.

For instance, anchoring down a table to the floor or a bookshelf to a wall does require some skills. But it is learnable and you can easily do that. Another way to reduce non-structural hazards is by bringing the attention of the right people to those hazards. What you did today was to identify these hazards.

Now what you could do is to give your list to your teacher. Your teacher could choose to share this list and your suggestions for mitigating these hazards with the school authorities. Once they are aware that these hazards exist, they know the right people to contact to mitigate hazards associated with these elements.

You may be already wondering if you can do the rapid visual screening for your own home. I encourage you to do this. You can even encourage your family members to participate in this with you. You can use the same checklist as the one you use for your classroom and apply it to your own home. How many non-structural hazards can you identify in your own home?

How many of them can be reduced at no cost? How many of them can be reduced at some cost and may require special expertise? Now before I say goodbye, I'd like you to reflect on the following questions. Before an earthquake happens, what other steps can you take in addition to identifying and fixing

non-structural hazards that can be really important in terms of reducing hazards associated with earthquakes? Think about how you can make your home safer. Think about how you can make your classroom a safer environment. The second question. Do you know what to do before, during and after an earthquake in your school?

Does your school have an emergency plan? Does your school have emergency supplies? If so, do you know where those supplies are and how to access them? Have you practiced an earthquake drill in your school? Do you know what to do? If you're unsure about these questions, make sure that you talk to your teacher and seek guidance from her or him.

When it comes to earthquakes, there are simple things you can do to mitigate hazards associated with earthquakes. I hope in this lesson you learned skills for reducing non-structural hazards in your classroom and in your own home. Thank you for your attention and goodbye.

My name is Solmaz Mohajer. I'm a PhD student at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Thanks so much for checking out this video module. In this video module, your students learn about how to identify non-structural elements in their classroom,

how to identify hazards associated with them and what to do to mitigate hazards. You don't need any special equipment for this video lesson. For the majority of this lesson, students will be walking around the classroom looking at non-structural elements and identifying those that could be potentially dangerous to them during shaking.

You can have your students work in groups or individually, but we encourage you to allow your students to work in groups as most of the activities require discussions. The only material that is needed for this lesson is a handout. This is a handout that has a number of questions on it. It's called the Rapid Visual Screening Checklist.

Your students will be using this handout to answer questions related to non-structural hazards in the classroom. Please go over this handout and make sure that most of these questions, if not all of them, are relevant to your students and to their classroom. The questions that are irrelevant, you can just take them out and replace them by those that could be relevant.

Also, if you notice that there are questions that should be asked of your students and that questions that should be actually included in this checklist, go ahead and modify the checklist by adding those questions to them. For the last part of this lesson, I encourage your students to think about emergency response plans for their schools,

emergency supplies, and even an earthquake drill for the school. Make sure that you talk to school authorities to inquire about any emergency response plans that have been developed for the school. Make sure you've seen it and you know what it entails. Also, if there is an earthquake drill designed for your school,

make sure that you know how to do it and that you can give information about it to your students. Your students will ask you a lot of questions about this. You can also encourage your students to think about non-structural elements that could be potentially dangerous outside of their classroom. This could be anywhere else in the school, including the schoolyard. Also, if you find it appropriate, we encourage you to share the list of non-structural hazards

that your students have identified with school authorities and have them pay attention to it. Thank you for checking out this video module. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope that it has been useful to you. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. And for more resources and information on non-structural hazards associated with classrooms or homes,

please feel free to check out the information page designed for this video. Thanks again. Goodbye.