Earthquake Webquest Project

IntroductionNEWS FLASH: A terrible earthquake has hit the town of Shakeville. Many houses and buildings were destroyed, and the people of the town are very upset and afraid. The people of Shakeville need to learn more about earthquakes and earthquake safety so that they will know what to do if an earthquake ever strikes their town again.

The TaskIt is your responsibility, as members of the National Disaster Taskforce for the Shakeville News Team, to help the community of Shakeville understand earthquakes and how to be safe in the event of future quakes. As a team you will be creating a broadcasted special about earthquakes. This special should be informative for all of Shakeville's citizens including information about equipment used to detect earthquakes, causes of earthquakes, and history of earthquake damage and earthquake safety. You will also be responsible for designing and producing a Newscast video or PowerPoint presentation about earthquakes and earthquake safety to inform the community members. Your taskforce must become experts in the field of earthquakes in order to be successful at this task. Good Luck!

ProcessIn order to complete your task and educate the townspeople on earthquakes and how to stay safe during an earthquake, each person in your group will be given one of four different jobs. When you are assigned this job, it will be your mission to find out as much as you can on the subject. You will be the expert on what you find, so make sure you work as hard as you can to teach the people of this town more about earthquakes. After doing the research on each topic using the links provided, you will share your individual results with your other group members. Once each group member has presented his/her findings, your group will work together to plan how to present this information to this class in a newscast format. Also, your group will make a video webcast or PowerPoint with the information you have found.

You will join two different groups on Edmodo. One group will be your Presentation Group and will include 1 of each:

Geologist, Seismologist, Safety Expert Damage Investigator

This is your “News Team Group”. The second group will be composed of everyone else in the class that has the same assignment as you do. (All Geologists, all safety experts, etc.) This is your “Professional Group”.

During the research phase of your project, you will work with other members of the class who have the same job assignment as you do. (Research group) You may share information and resources and work together on gathering your information, however, each person is responsible for creating a unique and separate contribution to the original News Team group.

After all the groups have finished the research, you will re-join your “News Team Group” and create either a video webcast or a PowerPoint presentation and then each group will present their findings to the class. You will also post your video webcast or PowerPoint on Edmodo so that you can help your class learn more about earthquakes.

Grading:

Your grade will be based on:

Quality of information Group participation Your presentation and Your Video or PowerPoint.

See attached grading rubric.

Here is information and some details about each position:

Seismologist:

You will be in charge of finding different types of instruments that seismologists use to study and learn about earthquakes.

It is your job to find at least five different types of methods and instruments that seismologists use to measure earthquakes and explain them to your audience..

Describe what seismologists do when an earthquake happens. Are they able to predict when and where the next earthquake will happen?

Geologist You will be in charge of looking at the reasons earthquakes

occur. You will be able to explain what tectonic plates are and what the

theory of Plate Tectonics is. You will describe how the Earth’s mantle and tectonic plates play

a role in earthquakes. You will explain what fault lines are, what kind of faults there are

and how to predict where earthquakes are likely to happen.

Safety Expert Your job will be to research how to stay safe when an earthquake

happens. Explain what people can do to stay safe before an earthquake

hits if they live in an area where earthquakes are likely to happen.

Create a list of at least 10 things people should have in an earthquake kit.

Describe at least three ways builders can make buildings safe in earthquake areas.

Damage Investigator You will compare the difference between earthquakes measuring

2.0, 4.0, 7.0, etc on the Richter scale and find pictures of the differences.

You will study earthquakes that have taken place in history and report on the damage they have caused.

Compare the damage done by earthquakes of the same size in different areas of the world and give reasons why some caused more damage than others. (good examples would be the 2010 7.0 earthquake in Haiti vs. the 7.2 earthquake in Mexicali, Mexico).

You will also report on the 2011 earthquake in Japan and find what other areas of the world could have a similar earthquake.

Your resources:

Please use books from our classroom and the library, the websites listed on Edmodo.

If you find additional websites that you think are useful, please tell me so I can post them for others to use.