Solid+Earth

From: J. Rodewald, Shaker High School, Latham, NY The link below provides a solid representation of what happened in Japan this past weekend. It may also be helpful for next year's lessons on plate tectonics and hazard management. [] These two were helpful for some of the discussion beginning to swell about boiling water reactors in light of the growing nuclear crisis in Japan. [] []

From Kristin Eaton RE: Japanese Tsunami Before and After photos If a picture is worth a thousand words []

From: Jason Bousman, Westfield High School Link for Japan pics before and after. [|[[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.htmlTeacher|http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html]]]Teacher

From: Mark Ewoldsen This is a neat visualization of the wave height generated from the recent earthquake off of Japan. @http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/images/high_resolution/680_20110311-TsunamiWaveHeight.jpg This study shows that strong oceanic tides (>2 meters) are significant factor in triggering a quake (determining its exact timing), particularly for subduction zone quakes because they are near coastlines and so most like to experience strong tides. No mention is made of eccentricity effects, which would seem likely to be a very small percentage of the total tide, but I have not calculated out what percentage. This would not be the case for NZ, which was on land. []

From: Sue Barnes Hannahs, Severna Park High School I am doing something similar to this from Kati so that we can get some practical experience seeing how the earthquake is the first event that causes all of these other results cascading into each other. On the back of the paper with this information was a concept map with simply "earthquake" in the middle and we started branching off of it into the main areas we have studied: land/soil, water, human health, etc. I will copy it into this email:

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Part One: Brainstorm all of the environmental effects of the 3/11 earthquake. Start by drawing a concept map as directed. With your team members, add in all of the effects both immediate and long term.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Part Two: Participate in creating the class concept map. Make predictions about what kinds of issues the Japanese people will face in the next few days, weeks, months and years as a consequence of the earthquake.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Part Three: As a team, select ONE main category of effects to study. Using your text and information from newspapers and online sources, answer the following questions. (Be sure you cite sources of information!)

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Team Topic: _ <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">1) Describe the most immediate effects of the earthquake. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">2) Based on your answer to number 1, describe the cascade of events or issues that will arise in the immediate future. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">3) Based on your answer to number 2, describe the long-term effects or issues that the Japanese people will have to deal with in the future. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">4) What other issues/effects will intersect with your topic? Explain how they will overlap. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">5) How does this compare with similar problems after the earthquake in Haiti<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> and the tsunami in Indonesia<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">? <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">6) Discuss with team members and share: What should be the response be from developed nations in the world? <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">7) What lessons should we (in the U.S.<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">) learn from this?

From: Terry Sacket, Enid High Add to above lesson plan: Here is one option for managing the brainstorm portion, which could be used in any situation .. a. Give the students sticky notes b. They have five minutes to write out a single idea / sticky note (NO talking) Generally results in 20-30 sticky notes...  c. After the 5 min, then they can talk, discussing how to place ALL the sticky notes into categories of their own choosing. Use different size or color sticky notes to serve as category headers.

This technique gives ALL students input and then at end it brings in the social collaboration that lets all to learn from each other. From this classification scheme students are better prepared to do the concept map.

What about using pink notes for long term and yellow for short term. This way individual students must additionally process their ideas ... just thinking aloud.

Have used this numerous times with students and teacher training....keeps them engaged and validated.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">From: Mark Little <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">At NSTA this past week I participated in a workshop about a product called My World GIS. The workshop introduced us to the product and we got to go through a lesson on plate tectonics. It was fascinating and potentially a very powerful tool. They gave us a 45 day trial disc to try. It could be used in APES or environmental science or an earth science class. There are other potential uses of My World GIS including biodiversity. See: []