Monday 31 March 2008

Another Earthlearningidea - Earthquake through the window

Our latest activity 'Earthquake through the window - what would you see, what would you feel?' is asking pupils to picture for themselves what an earthquake through the window might look like. Through discussion, pupils will be able to suggest answers to questions such as, what would you see, what would be happening on the ground, what would be happening to buildings and trees, what would people be doing, what would it be like inside this building, how would you be feeling, what might have caused the earthquake - - ?
Please try this out with your pupils and let us have your comments and feedback.

4 comments:

Unknown said...
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Anonymous said...

My name is Chen Po-Yu. I am studying in National Taiwan Normal University. My major is earth science. I am very interesting which about earthquake. Because JIJI earthquake was happened in 1999.
In this subject. The age range of pupils is 8-18years. Students are not foreign about earthquake in Taiwan. I think, we can discuss more in elementary school. But we can teach more knowledge which about geophysics. Because students who studied in senior high school have some basic knowledge which about geology and physics.
This subject is very wonderfully. Think you very much.

李昭璋 said...

We are the students who major in earth science at National Taiwan Normal University. We are interested in this subject because we have tried to teach the pupils by the similar methods, which are on the website, at the Day Care Center before. And we found that most thoughts of pupils toward the pictures are confined to the discussions on environmental damage and where the exactly damage take place. To be brief, while we can comprehend from these pictures that how terrible the destruction on the buildings caused by earthquake are, we still can’t know what else cause of such a serious damage are.
Therefore, we think there can be one more question on the website “What similarities will you find among these collapsed buildings?” With this question, we can make pupils think how influences of the building material and the structure of buildings on the collapsed buildings are.
In addition, we have some answers to the question “Can we tell when earthquakes like this are coming?” Although there are no scientific measures to forecast when earthquakes are coming, we still can teach pupils there are certainly some strange phenomena before earthquakes come. For example, “earthquake clouds” are claimed to be a sign of imminent earthquakes. And there are many records of abnormal behaviors of some animals, such as catfish, when some catastrophes approach, especially earthquakes.
In summary, we think this educate subject is very practical and we believe it is profitable for pupils to understand one of the most awesome and powerful disaster of Mother Nature, which is called “earthquake”.

Anonymous said...

My name is Chia Hsien -Lin. I am studying in National Taiwan Normal University.
My major is earth science. I am very interesting this subject.
The 921 earthquake (7.3M) occurred at 01:47 a.m. on September 21, 1999 in Chichi, Nantou, Taiwan.
Some students come from south / middle / north Taiwan. Let they describe what they felt during the 921 earthquake.
1. In south Taiwan some people who were sleeping were awakened and felt uncomfortable or frightened. After the earthquake some people chose to sleep.
2. In middle Taiwan some people who were standing in an open area were thrown to the ground and got injured because of the powerful and incredible force of the earthquake. A lot of people screamed, cried and felt terrified and hopeless.
After the powerful earthquake, there were lots of aftershocks occurred.
People kept staying outside because they were really terrified.
Some of them saw the “earthquake light” and heard voice from ground.
3. In north Taiwan some people felt uncomfortable or frightened. They especially felt long time swing during the earthquake.
4. Some people come from no earthquake countries. They think earthquakes are frightening or interesting。

It is interesting in this subject we can talk about earthquakes and learn about knowledge with students.