North Lincoln County CERT

EDITOR: the below article was written by my daughter, Lori. She is the Public Affairs Officer for Foothill College. She says this course will be offered on-line in about a year. I for one would like to enroll.

SUPHEAD: New Course
HEAD: Study the Science Behind Natural Disasters & Earth Catastrophes

From tsunamis to earthquakes to global climate changes, study the science of natural disasters and Earth catastrophes by enrolling in Foothill's four-unit GEOL 7 course. By examining natural disasters, this new course will help you develop an understanding of the basic scientific principles that govern our violent planet.

"Hurricane Katrina, the Great Sumatra Andaman Earthquake and the resultant tsunami-these are recent events that have increased public awareness of the awesome power of the Earth," says Foothill College Geography Instructor Christopher DiLeonardo, Ph.D. "To be good citizens of the planet, and be prepared to make the important policy decisions of the future, everyone should have a basic understanding of the science behind the awesome and oftentimes dangerous forces of nature."

The course introduces you to a cross section of local and regional problems as well as catastrophic processes of global scale. You'll discuss the treatment of these topics in popular media, and their impact on public policy issues.

A member of the Foothill faculty since 1990, Dr. DiLeonardo also conducts ongoing research on subduction zones like the one that generated the Sumatra Andaman earthquake and tsunami in 2004. His most recent work includes research on fault systems on the margin of Pacific Northwest that threaten coastal Oregon and Washington. He has worked as a researcher at the UC Santa Cruz Institute of Geophysics & Planetary Physics and as a research fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View.