Mr. DIARRA

Diarra14@aol.com

MORRIS HIGH SCHOOL

Natural Disasters

Introduction:

The United States is becoming more vulnerable to natural hazards mostly because of changes in population and national wealth density-more people and infrastructure have become concentrated in disaster-prone areas. Total cost estimates for natural disasters are highly speculative and depend on what financial consequence are included in the assessment, what phenomena are considered to constitute natural disaster, and the sporadic occurrence of large events such as Hurricane Andrew in 1992,the 1993 Midwest floods, and the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Task:

As an expert in natural disasters your task is to prepare a research document based on the recent disasters and how these social issues affect the life of the populations located in these areas, and how the problems can be solved.

Your report will include:

1. Three natural disasters and how they occur.
2. Previous evacuation policies on each natural disaster.

3. The cause and effect of each natural disaster.

4. Identify data to create your policy on natural disaster.

5. Use the previous information to support your policy on a natural disaster. Your group will use this information to debate another group’s policy is viable and feasible in an urban area.

Process:

1. Students will break into groups.
2. Discuss in your group what you believe are the policies on natural disasters.
3. Use the websites to find information about natural disasters.
4. Use the information to create a alternative policy statement.
5. The group policy statement should be written and presented in class as part of a debate.

Resources:

These are some useful websites:

www.governmentguide.com/dirsearch.adp

www.fema.gov/

www.google.com

www.library.thinkquest.org

www.agu.org/sci/articles/eisvink.html

http://marine.Rutgers.edu/imagery.html

http://cindi.usgs.gov

www.geocities.com/colosseum/5484

http://pongo.colorado.edu/ucb/research/ibshazard/inde

Evaluation:

You will be evaluated based on the rubric chart below.

	Unacceptable	Need Improvement	Satisfactory	Exemplary
Quality of information	Inaccurate information	General information Use one specific example Has a vague understanding of the issue.	Accurate information. Use one specific example.	Accurate information Use two or more specific examples
Accuracy	Serious grammatical errors.	A few serious errors.	Few spelling Mistakes.	Grammatically perfect.
Format	No format followed.	A format is followed.	A general format is followed.	Format is followed Perfectly.

Conclusion: Through researching and analyzing the data on the level of natural disaster that occur in the USA, students will understand government policies on natural disasters, how they occur and their results. Students will also feel more secure in making decisions on how to protect and save people’s lives. Researching these issues provides a clear understanding on the reason why natural disasters are serious problems, which is costly to the country and the economy.