2025 Annual Conference: Chiefs' Issues

Friday, October 17th, 12:30 - 4:00 pm | Afternoon Session

Chiefs' Issues: Bringing Fire Dynamics into the Middle School Classroom - Recruitment, Education, Community Partnerships
Chief Andrew Slama, Edina & Battalion Chief Becki Rowan-White, Chanhassen

Session Description
The purpose of this course is to expose participants to the resources available from UL Research Institutes that can be used to co-teach national standards-based curriculum with science teachers on fire forensics, lithium-ion batteries, fire sprinklers, and thermal runaway. The integration in the classroom allows the fire service to have contact with students in a meaningful way while they are considering their career options in middle and high school. It identifies fire service careers as STEM careers, and fire service personnel as subject matter experts.

The class will be tailored to the ease of which a fire department can utilize the program as a fire prevention and education strategy within local schools. Edina Fire Department has teamed with Edina Public Schools and UL Research Institutes who provide free training and programming to middle and high school teachers and fire departments. The Edina teachers used Xplorlabs Science of Fire Forensics program, a no cost, standards based to teach their students about fire dynamics and fire investigation using claims, evidence, and reasoning. The Edina Fire Department went into the classroom to perform hands-on investigations with the students to assist in their learning and identification for their own virtual fire investigation.

The program benefits the district and the fire department. The district/teachers accomplishes requirements in science standards they were already going to have. The fire department gets a critical connection point with youth to discuss recruitment and connection to the middle schools, as well as addressing battery and fire safety issues and prevention.

The class would be tailored to decision-makers in fire departments on how easy the program is to implement and the benefits of such a program.