 | ||||||||
 | LOGIN | |  |  | | |||
 | ||||||||
 |
| 5/13/2008 |  | |||||
| ||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Tsunami!
This unit should take 2-4 hours, depending on time, interest, and extension activities. This unit is designed for intermediate level students. Objectives Students will: Materials to Print
Activities Activity I: Pre-reading (15-20 minutes) Ask the students what the geographical term "coast" means. Once you have come up with a working definition, ask students to break up into small groups and give them three minutes to list as many words as they can that are related to "coast." You may put words like "beach" or "bay" or "storm" on the board as examples. After determining which group has the most words, put the categories "weather, " "land," and "water" on the board and ask a few students to take turns putting some of their words in the proper categories. Ask students to come up with categories for the words that are left over (you may even end up with something like "beach activities. ") Give students time to explain why a word could go into more than one category or to disagree with some of the choices made. Activity II: Warm-up discussion (15-20 minutes) In their same small groups, ask students to come up with a list of advantages and disadvantages of living on the coast (you may want to let them choose a specific geographical location and describe both the house and how it is situated on the coast before they begin.) Discuss the results briefly as a class. Someone will probably mention wave or tidal damage. If they don't, ask questions like "How can the sea be a problem?" Try to find out quickly what students know about the water-related problems and catastrophes they mention and how they are caused. Activity III: Vocabulary (15 minutes) Hand out copies of Printout I. In their groups, have students individually circle the words they think they know and then share their choices and their knowledge with the group. As a class, clear up some of the discrepancies and volunteer quick definitions for words students don't know. Activity IV: Reading (30 minutes) In groups of three, have students read a paragraph aloud, switching readers each sentence. When they are done, have them read the passage one more time with a different student going first, so that a teacher has time to circulate and make sure they understand what they are doing. When they are done, ask them to turn their papers over and give them three minutes to write whatever they remember. Give the group a few minutes to discuss what they remember collectively and didn't understand. You may ask students to do the same with the next paragraph or ask them to work individually and try to summarize the next two paragraphs on their own. Activity V: True or False (15 minutes) Give students five minutes to complete the True/False questions. Have them discuss their work with the other group members and reach a consensus on each answer. Discuss as a class. Activity VI: Group Discussion (20-30 minutes) Give each group the attached scenario (you may want to let them work in slightly larger groups for this; 4 or 5 students per group). When students have made a final decision as to their tsunami escape or survival plan, they should choose one person to present it to the class. The presenter should be a different student than the one who led the group and the one who took notes. Try to assign as many "roles" for the discussion as you can in advance, so that everyone is taking part. Presenters should be encouraged to use the blackboard if they need to diagram anything. Activity VII: Working with Modals of Possibility (20 minutes) Whether students are aware of it or not, they "might" or "could" find themselves struggling with modals of probability in their presentations (you might even point out this sentence as an example.) After the presentations are over, remind them that the rule of thumb is that "will" is used in definite (100 %) situations, "must" is a word that can be used in situations when you are ninety percent sure, and "may" and "might" are used when something is merely possible (50%.) Write a model sentence on the board like "If you stay in the stairwell, you might be safe at first but then might not be able to get out of the building." Have students write three sentences for each modal on a piece of paper based on their presentations or what they now believe and circulate while they are writing to make sure they understand. These papers should be reviewed before the student attempts the research paper. A review of the present perfect may be in order before students start writing about choices people "might have made" when dealing with past tsunamis. Activity VIII: Research Paper (45 minutes - 2 days) It goes without saying that students are working more with common sense than an extensive knowledge of the environment or physics in the previous presentation activity. They should use the Internet to research tsunamis that have caused significant damage in different parts of the world over the past thirty years and write a paper that evaluates their survival plan in retrospect once they have read about other people's experiences. There are handbooks available on the Web that discuss tsunami survival strategies. One handbook published by the U.S. government also gives the histories of many recent tsunamis. |