Natural Disasters: Earthquake and Tsunami in Chile

Where were you during the earthquake? Did you suffer any loss? Are questions that we make and listen quite often nowadays. It has been a slow recovery for many of us, specially the ones in the southern area, where they still need a lot of help.

Psychologists have been saying that the best way of moving on and recovering a peaceful state of mind is by talking about it, asking and sharing experiences - which (I believe) has worked quite fine.

Now, moving any political issues aside, it is always recommended to be aware of the dangers or hazards of the places where we live and how to react in case of emergency. It is extremely important to inform ourselves and our families/students about any emergency plans our government or local authorities may give.

We, as teachers, can make a difference in this subject. We can plan lessons and even units on natural disasters and how to react before one strikes.

First it was Haiti and now it was Chile. The earthquake in Chile was 500x stronger than the one in Haiti, but the death toll was considerably smaller. Here's a very interesting article from Time mag, about a comparison between the two countries. (to use with Upper-intermediate and Advance learners)

Chile and Haiti: A Tale of Two Earthquakes

Lesson plans

These are very nice lesson plans from National Geographic:

• LIVING LANDSCAPES: ARE YOU A DISASTER?(Pre-intermediate - Intermediate)
• EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES(UPPER INTERMEDIATE - ADVANCED)

Here's a ton of resources from the U.S. Geological Survey:

• Earthquake Topics — Lessons online

Here's a PPT presentation I made a few years ago, which you can download from Slideshare, that may be useful if you want to do something with this topic.

Natural Disasters

View more presentations from Marisol Smith.

Finally, here's a video of the news after the tragedy. I do not advice using this video with children or teenagers, as it may be a reminder of everything they've been through.Remember that we are trying to avoid more psychological damage on them.