LT: Students will analyze patterns in data on a natural disaster and will forecast future natural hazards in order to minimize the damage and lives lost in a specific region.
SC:
1. Students choose a location & natural disaster: Yellowstone (Volcano), Mt. Saint Helen (Volcano), New Orleans (Hurricane), Haiti (Earthquake), Japan (Tusnami), Oklahoma City (Tornado), Oregon (wildfire), California (Drought), California (Landslide)
2. Research data on your location and disaster. Find answers to the following things about your disaster and record the information in your notebook.
How much damage was there?
How much did the damage cost?
What happened to the people that were living there?
How about the animals?
How about the landscape?
The buildings?
Did they have a warning system?
Did they have a disaster plan?
3. After researching your disaster make a booklet that summarizes it. The booklet should use words and pictures to teach others about the disaster you are researching. There should be a title page and then 7 pages of information. Below is what the pages should be about. Mr. Burns will supply paper and show you how to fold it. Make sure it is colorful, neat and has pictures.
Title page: Name, Date, location of Disaster
Page 1: Damage/Cost
Page 2: People
Page 3: Animals
Page 4: Landscape
Page 5: Buildings
Page 6: Warning System
Page 7: Disaster Plan
Part 2: Minimize Future Disasters
Imagine you are a contractor/city planner that is being hired to come up with a “disaster mitigation plan” (this means you want to make the problem smaller than it was before). Think about what plan you will create that will mitigate the natural disaster (for example, basements help people stay safe during a tornado AND if there’s a drought, build a reservoir)
Disaster Plan Step 1: Warning Systems
The first part of your Disaster plan will be to review and make better the disaster warning system.
1. Take some time and write a detailed explanation of what the plan was the day of the disaster. Explain what the warning was. How much notice did people get? Did people take the warning seriously?
2. Write a detailed explanation of what the new warning system should be. Should you keep the old system? What new technologies could you use to help even more people in the future?
3. Make a poster that summarizes your new plan. It should explain how you are going to warn people the next there is a disaster. Think of the poster as a way to get word out to the public about the new warning system. They should be able to look at it and know what to expect the next time there is a disaster heading their way. It also should be colorful, neat and have words and pictures.
Click here for videos that we watched in class.