Photo credit: Sichuan Earthquake May 2008 by Remko Tanis on Flickr. Provided for use under a Creative Commons licence.
Focus on Earthquakes: Resources
A collection of earthquake resources that should prove useful when planning geography lessons. If you'd like to share a resource on this page, please contact Anne Greaves.
Fireflies by Sam Sumner
Sam Sumner is a Year 8 student at Saddleworth School in Oldham and a very talented musician. His teacher, Nicole Sandler, asked him to write the lyrics to a song about tectonics as a homework task.
Sam wrote the lyrics and the music for Fireflies and, with the help of his guitar teacher, recorded it as a single. Sam himself sings on the track and plays guitar while his music teacher played the bass and drums on a keyboard.
Copyright notice: all lyrics, music and rights to the song and its contents in full are held by Sam Sumner and his family
Fireflies lyrics by Sam Sumner
(6k)
note: this file requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader.
If you do not have this you can get it free from the Adobe website.
Societies and associations
US Geological Survey
British Geological Survey
Geological Society
Earth Science Teachers Association
Geologists Association
Classroom resources
Teaching About Disasters - Earthquake Week - article by Justin Sharpe in the Summer 2005 issue of Teaching Geography. It 'Provides practical ways into teaching about plate tectonics, earthquakes and other natural hazards'. Free to GA members
Happening Now! - one of the ideas in our ICT at Key Stage 4 project area. It includes tips for teaching about current events, with the 2008 UK earthquake used as an example, plus ideas for contrasting and comparing disasters.
Tsunami and earthquake resources - Two one-hour lessons to download designed with Y8 & 9 in mind. Includes starter activity and main.
Earthquakes in the news - Presentation, along with transcript and a YouTube video. Focuses on Indonesian and Samoa earthquakes.
Education for Geo-Hazards - Earthquake! – how to survive an earthquake!
Dealing with Disasters – Background information and lesson plans from Oxfam's Cool Planet website
Earthquakes on GeographyPages – useful information on Alan Parkinson’s site
Earthquake links on SLN – search for ‘earthquake’ on the Staffordshire Learning Network.
Earthquake links on GeoResources – more links
Earthquakes on the USGS website– US site, with dedicated areas for teachers, students and kids.
How Earthquakes Happen - Flash animation (or PDF) from the BBC
The World-Wide Earthquake Locator – from the Edinburgh Earth Observatory
Earthquake intensity map - an intensity map of UK earthquakes for Google Earth
List of magnitude 5.0 and greater earthquakes - lists all large earthquakes in world over the last seven days
UK earthquakes
Q&A - the UK's Small Scale Tremors - BBC article
'The room just started shaking' - map of quake intensity across the UK linked to reader comments (BBC)
Telegraph Readers Google Map - witness accounts according to are
Table of town-by-town statistics - provided by the US Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program. 7872 reports were received, mainly in Britain but some in Belgium.
Earthquakes in the British Isles - BGS earthquake website
BGS Earthquake Questionnaire – help the BGS study earthquakes by recording your experiences
Magnitude 4.7, England UK - USGS information about UK earthquake, including maps and scientific data
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