Matthew A. Dooley
As students have multiple ways of assimilating information, it is important to include visual, tactile and auditory methods of delivery. These three modes of learning will be achieved in various ways. Through the sparing use of documentaries and clips from movies, students will be able to visualize aspects of natural disasters from their causes to their aftermath. It is important that documentaries are used in concert with question sheets which must be answered during the viewing by the students. Throughout this process the film can be paused so as to queue the students when questions must addressed and key points emphasized. At the end of the viewing, students should be called upon to answer the questions. This will allow certain students who are having issues of comprehension a chance to answer missed questions and also the teacher to address these gaps. Student explanations should be stressed over teacher supplied responses as a way of reinforcing the new information the students have learned. This will also allow students the opportunity to express themselves in a more public format. At the conclusion of the question review, students should be required to pass in the questions and their answers to confirm whether or not they have processed the information.
Teacher-led student internet research should be used at several stages. National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.com/forcesofnature/interactive/index.html has a website which allows students to change several variables which will result in a hurricane, volcano or earthquake. The website itself is easy to navigate and can be used to give students a hands-on and visual demonstration of the factors which when combined in a certain way, lead to these natural disasters. Particular historical events accompany each natural disaster and can be used as teacher introduced examples. The second stage of research will consist of individual student research from a previously teacher created list. The students will be assigned or allowed to choose a disaster type that interests them after they have learned about natural disasters. This process, if done correctly, will maximize student interest in their research. Students will be given a handout which asks questions about their specific natural disasters which will lead them through the task of researching. At this age, it is appropriate and important to keep narrow, focused goals for the students to keep them from getting lost or overwhelmed. The medium of choice will be the internet. It is vital that students begin to use the internet as a research tool. Encyclopedia Britannica (it has articles which range from elementary to adult) will be the first resource to which the students will be directed. This will allow them to gain background information on their natural disaster which can be tailored to the reading level of each student.
Traditional lecture format will makeup the third component of student learning. This format will be integrated with the film selections and initial internet research so as to give the students the needed background information, scaffolding from the mechanics of the natural disasters to actual events in history. Due to the small percentage of students who are able to assimilate information through the medium of lecture, it is advised that this particular component be kept to a minimum and be woven tightly into both tactile and visual styles of learning. This will keep a larger part of the student population engaged. It is advised that end of class assessments be given after anything in lecture format to give the students and the teacher a gage of what information has been digested and what concepts may need some more emphasis. This type of assessment can be as simple as a short writing prompt which can be given at the end of the lesson and finished for homework. Depending on the level of academic ability of the students, a short answer question sheet might be more appropriate.
Students will have the opportunity to learn the major causes of natural disasters, some of which have shaped societies throughout history. As the class itself is a quasi-geography course embedded within survey style social studies of world cultures, it is necessary for students to understand the function that geography plays in the development of world societies. The lessons for this curriculum unit will focus on the "how" of natural disasters and will be integrated with teaching of landmasses and world climate zones. This will facilitate discussion on plate tectonics and weather patterns, the causes of volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes. These four types of natural disasters can then be used to illustrate aspects of the Five Themes of Geography on different societies in the world.
As this is a junior high level course in an inner city, student achievement and needs must be taken into account in an undertaking this comprehensive. The study of these events should contain sufficient depth to achieve a level of student comprehension in the causes of each type of event. This will provide background information for the students to understand the events, with a basic knowledge that they will then be able to apply to the Five Themes of Geography. For example, students will learn why living in a specific location increases the risk of certain natural disasters and decreases the risk of others. In these ways students, will not only have a fuller understanding of the geography of the world but will also be exposed to different societies that will be explored during later points in the year.
The two major lesson plans will center on plate tectonics and climate zones as these two aspects of geography can be used to explain the four major natural disasters I wish to cover with the students. Each of these can be split into smaller lessons as the need arises. Again, I have to stress that with the background of these students, it would be counter-productive to inundate them with more information that they can reasonably absorb and these initial lectures would best be supplemented with video clips from sources such as National Geographic. As in any teaching environment (especially in one where students are not there by choice), it is vital that the interest of the students is kept at the forefront. Too much abstract information, without enough "human interest" stories and the instructor runs the risk of losing their students to boredom by overwhelming them with facts.
Students then will be allowed a certain amount of flexibility in attempting to use other websites to locate further information and acquire visual supplements to their initial research. This will allow students to see pictures of natural disasters and give them a chance to interact with different types of websites, which may be used for their research. Many of these students will have had limited access and experience with the internet for this purpose and this approach will expose them to the non-social facets of using the World Wide Web. The concluding activity will be a project which will require each student to report to the class about their selected natural disaster. This will expose the class to different areas and cultures around the world. The concluding activity will be combined with a tactile hands-on project, such as a poster board which can be split up into four pages that could be the precursor to a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
As this is a Social Studies course, it is important not to get bogged down with the inexperienced student attempts at creating the actual PowerPoint presentations. Instead, students will use the poster board to indicate which images they would choose to use in the creation of their presentation. Each "slide" on the poster would represent different aspects of their natural disaster. One slide would be a map of where the actual event occurred combined with any pertinent information such as proximity to cities and the scope of the event. Another slide could include pictures gathered from the internet. If there are no pictures of the event or its aftermath then students should draw, allowing them an avenue to express their artistic side. I want to stress that artistic ability should not be a component in the grade; instead the particular choice of imagery that the student chooses should illustrate the impact of the event on the society under study. A bullet point slide should be assembled from the questions that the students answered from their handouts. This will be limited to one full page and will be constructed from the responses to their questions. The students will also be asked to list the resources they have used. The use of primary sources should be encouraged for higher functioning students as they attempt to research their projects. In fact, the final slide should contain a written account by the student as if they were an eyewitness to the event. This will force the students to take the many facets of the relationship of the peoples to their surrounding geography into account. Are they near the Ocean? (Location would make peoples more vulnerable to tsunamis caused by either volcanoes or earthquakes.) Why are earthquakes more deadly in places such as Iran as opposed to California?
The initial question handout which the students will have to fill out as they are doing the research on their particular natural disaster should do more than just have them fill out particular facts on the sheet. Questions on this sheet should prompt students to explore the society affected by the natural disaster. Students should be asked to sketch a map along with this initial handout in order to give them an image of the geographical environment of the affected society. Students should be asking "what is life like there?" For example, is the city along the coast and what was the major occupation of its people? Are they mostly fishermen who returned from their day at sea with no knowledge of an earthquake, or the tsunami it caused which might have completed the devastation? Was the village at the foot of a large volcano and therefore buried under pyoclastic surge? Is the society mired in poverty or corruption and therefore unable to build structures which are resistant to natural disasters?
The overarching objective of this curriculum unit is to utilize natural disasters as a means of having students apply the concept of the five themes of geography to different societies around the world. The background information of climate zones and plate tectonics will then have for the students a real application beyond the dry mechanics of their processes. Students will explore first hand how these phenomena affect the development of societies within the context of the larger world while at the same time having exposure to varied geographical areas and cultures.
Content Standards
The curriculum unit is intertwined within the appropriate Connecticut State Content Standards. The performance standard of Content Standard One: Historical Thinking will be achieved through student research. Initially, when examples of particular natural disasters are used in concert with their causes, primary sources (first hand accounts) and their analysis should be modeled with the students so as to give them the experience to accomplish this higher order function of learning on their own. Primary source evaluation will be encouraged for students of all ability levels. Further, students will have the opportunity to gather information from multiple sources and will have to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. Pictures of events will allow students to interpret data in historical maps and photographs. Finally, students will be charged with the task, as part of the closing activity, of writing their own "eyewitness account" of the event they are researching. This will force the students to think outside their own environment and consider the many different implications of the five themes of geography on their chosen natural disaster.
The performance standard of Content Standard Two: Historical Themes will be achieved through student identification and analysis of the various effects of movements of groups of people as a result of natural disasters. The mass movement of residents of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is a strong illustration of this standard.
The performance standard of Content Standard Four: Applying History will be achieved as students write their first hand eyewitness accounts of their event. This will create a venue for the students to display empathy for the people who experienced their natural disaster. This will further be heightened as students describe the event and its resulting impact on the society within its geographical range of impact.
The performance standard of Content Standard Nine: Places and Regions will be achieved through student research and analysis of the geographical setting in which the natural disaster occurs. Students will understand how the proximately to areas which receive hurricanes on a regular basis affects the development of that region. Students will also understand how proximity to volcanoes can affect societies. Volcanoes tend to create fertile soil. Many times, societies choose to ignore the risk of potentially deadly volcanic activity associated with the creation of this rich farming land. Despite historical evidence, many times with pending doom filling the background of their daily existence, people gamble their possible doom for their livelihood. Students will be able to evaluate these choices on their own terms fostering a higher order of thinking. Latitude and longitude will be used to calculate both the epicenter of the event and pinpoint the areas/cities which were affected.
The performance standard of Content Standard Ten: Physical Systems will be achieved through the study of plate tectonics theory and the climatic patterns. The resulting volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis will be analyzed as a byproduct of the movement of the earth's plates. Hurricanes (also called cyclones) will be used to illustrate prevailing climatic patterns in regions of the world. In this way students will understand how concepts in physical geography can be used to explain the occurrence of natural disasters.
The performance standard of Contend Standard Twelve: Human and Environment interaction will be achieved through student use and creation of maps centered on the events studied, while at the same time identifying the relationship that societies have to the areas in which the events take place.
Five Themes Applied
A detailed analysis of the five themes of geography's impact on the different aspects surrounding natural disasters would be extremely helpful at this point. Depending on student achievement levels, it might or should not be expected that every one of the five themes could be utilized in the concluding activity. This is entirely dependent on which natural disaster a student chooses to study. To avoid overlap of particular disasters, the teacher should refer to list of natural disasters and assign a broad enough sample to touch upon all of the applications of the five themes of geography to various areas of the world. This class is as much a survey course of the many world cultures throughout history to the present day, thus it would be advantageous for the teacher to make sure that these natural disasters span the cultures and time periods that are to be studied during the year. This will allow for students to recall the information they have learned on an ongoing basis. As each culture is studied, the particular disaster can be reviewed with students adding further observations and points throughout the entire year.
As for student utilization of the five themes of geography, absolute location can be used to pinpoint the epicenter of an earthquake, location of a volcano, the major cities surrounding the events and other important locations which would need to be identified. Relative location also should be utilized, as students are drawing maps they should also label surrounding countries or bodies of water bordering the area they are studying.
The theme of Place can also be treated by the majority of students as subjects such as population density can analyzed through the lens of a natural disaster. Were there many people who were affected? Were the buildings built to withstand the particular natural disaster? Is it possible to build anything that could actually withstand that natural disaster?
The theme of Region can also be engaged by most of the students. Some geographical and climatic regions which are defined by the movement of plates and climate patterns can be used to illustrate a region's vulnerability to a certain type of natural disaster. Cultures that exist on the Pacific's Rim of Fire are more susceptible to volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. Countries such as Bangladesh and islands such as Okinawa are prone to devastating Cyclones. The countries which are in and around the Caribbean are also subject to the annual threat of hurricanes. Some of these same island nations in the Caribbean are also dealing with the multiple threats earthquakes and volcanoes caused by shifting plates.
While some of the natural disasters will be able to delve into the theme of movement, it isn't feasible to expect that all students will be able to successfully incorporate it. Events such Hurricane Katrina can be used to illustrate movement as a significant percentage of the city of New Orleans's population have experienced a Diaspora. At present a year and a half after the natural disaster struck the Gulf Coast, only half the city's population has returned. Another example of a natural disaster which caused a type of movement was the earthquake in 1692 which struck the Island of Port Royale. Two-thirds of the island sank into the water and over half of the city's population either sank with the city or was washed out to sea by the resulting tsunamis. Port Royale ceased to be the economic center of British activity in the Caribbean, instead being replaced by the nearby port of Kingston.
The theme of human-environment interaction should also provide the student with ample opportunity of examples and analysis. Locations of cities to areas of tectonic plate movement in the form of fault line and volcanic activity should be a basic objective for each one of the students to complete as each natural disaster will provide for this type of examination. Students should be encouraged to further explore other aspects of human-environment interaction which require higher thinking skills. For example, students should question why the death toll resulting from an earthquake is much worse in one area while the same magnitude earthquake occurring somewhere else might be negligible. This could stem from government corruption, choice of building materials and the type of surface that structures are built on. The 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran had a much higher death toll as floors were not properly secured to building walls, causing the floors to pancake on top of each other during the quake. This was the main factor to the large mortality rate.
It is necessary to include a selected list of natural disasters in which students will be able to find the needed information to complete the concluding activity poster board. It is advised that individual teachers do some research to evaluate which of the natural disasters will best suit the abilities and needs of their students. While there is information readily available on all of these natural disasters, many of them are covered in a recent publication called The 100 Greatest Disasters Of All Time by Stephen J. Spignesi. This book is in print and has a primary source and secondary information on many of the natural disasters listed below.
List of Natural Disasters
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- 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake
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- 2005 South Asia Pakistan Earthquake
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- 2003 Bam, Iran Earthquake
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- 1970 Bangladesh Cyclone
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- 1556 Great China Earthquake
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- 520 Antioch, Syria Earthquake
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- 2005 Hurricane Katrina
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- 1922 Great Kanto Earthquake
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- 79 Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
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- 1692 Port Royale Earthquake
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- 1815 Eruption of Tambora (year without a summer)
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- 1988 Armenia Earthquake
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- 1896 Japanese Tsunami
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- 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
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- 1755 Lisbon, Portugal Earthquake
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- 1999 Izmit, Turkey Earthquake
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- 1883 Eruption of Mount Krakatoa
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- 1900 Galveston Hurricane
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- 1998 Hurricane Mitch
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- Great Hurricane of 1780
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- Eruption of Mount Pelée
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- 1990 Iran Earthquake
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- 1970 Peru Earthquake
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- 1864 Calcutta Cyclone
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- 1908 Messina, Sicily Earthquake
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- 1920 Gansu, China Earthquake
The particular selection of these natural disasters are based upon several factors including location, severity of the event, effects upon the surrounding societies, ease of available information and their applications to the Five Themes of Geography.