Sunday, September 23, 2012
Natural Disasters and Students
When natural disasters strike, there is much teachers and students can do to learn about the natural disaster and get involved. This assignment reminds me of the 2004 Sumatra Earthquake and Tsunami. The elementary school I was teaching at had fundraisers to help raise money that was donated to the Red Cross to help with the recovering and clean up effort. Many students gave up their snack money to the cause. They have done this for families in the area who lost their homes to fires as well.
When the Sumatra, Haiti, and Japan earthquakes hit, I showed students where these places were on the map. With the Japan earthquake, we skipped to the Earthquake chapter and tied the chapter into what was going on in the news. We learned the science behind the event. We watched video clips of what had happened. I found websites with interactive explanations of what caused the earthquake and tsunami.
With the string of tornadoes in the last few years, many have been in nearby counties. Again, money and even food can be donated, but also there were opportunities for families to volunteer and help with the clean up. I could have made these opportunities known to my students.
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Hello,
ReplyDeleteI think that it's wonderful that your school had fundraisers to help raise money for the victims of the Sumatra disaster. I wanted to suggest the following site for your future reference:
http://www.dosomething.org/
You (or your students) can search for different causes they are interested in, both locally and internationally. My son's school used one the resources from the site for the tsunami in Japan, and they folded paper cranes (which was then turned in and each crane was worth a monetary donation). One word of caution is that the site is geared towards older students, and some of the articles may reflect this at times. Amy
Georgianna,
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of changing our lessons to a current event to make it more applicable to student's lives. Nice job on doing this.
Sincerely,
David
Georgianna,
ReplyDeleteI agree that natural disasters are a great way to teach other disciplines, such as caring or social studies. We can study why the disaster occurred and look at the science, then study the social studies (geography, political, etc.), and finally caring or empathy. Looking for ways to help, will instill these values in the students. Nice work!