Catastrophic Events and Culture

How do stories of cataclysmic events help inform students about geosciences and cultures?

On January 12, 2010 I walked into my classroom and threw my lesson plans in the trash.  You see I teach Earth science and was in the middle of teaching the Catastrophic Event unit which I had spent many hours with various colleagues designing the summer before.  We had all these great articles, experiments, and demonstrations that would teach students all about earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis.  On January 11th a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti.  As a classroom and as a nation we read articles, watched the news, and waited.  In school we learn about teachable moments and this is one that I will remember forever.  Technology changed the way we interact, learn, and respond to disasters.  When the Alaska Earthquake happened in 1964 it took days, weeks, and months for the nation, let alone the world, respond.  Forty plus years later when a disaster happens it is a matter of moments and we were receiving live feeds, sending aid for relief and watching with the rest of the world as the saga unfold.  How is this changing our culture?

I really enjoyed the Teacher's Domain videos this week.  I spent some time getting to know the website and learning how to save videos and lesson plans to folders.   I noticed that most of the videos that we have been watching were from a larger lesson called Alaska Native Ways of Knowing.  As I mentioned earlier I would like to organize a Native Knowledge Science Fair.  There were plenty of resources and ideas on this site that I can use.

Check out the November 2010 issue of Science Scope.  There are great activities about Maps and Mapping.  There is a great activity on using Google Earth to study the basic characteristics of Volcanos.  There are some parts that I will have to walk my students through (tangents) but I think it will be a great activity. 


3 Colleagues

Martha Gould-Lehe

I enjoyed reading Martha's blog.  She had two very interesting resources on Volcanoes.  One in particular was looking at art of beautiful picture of volcanoes. 

Tyler

I really liked the Global perspective that Tyler offered in his blog.  It made me really think about the globalization of our world and the affect it will have on our culture.

Kristine Owens

I really related to Kristine's blog this week when she talked about the things she learned this week being how to make a link in her blog.  Me too!!