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Natural disasters: Earthquake - The Richter Scale

This activity encourages communication between students and helps develop comprehension.

Level: Intermediate and above

Language Aims: To practice text organization and sequencing skills. To develop confidence in working with unfamiliar texts. To become familiar with some words related to earthquakes.

Time: 20 minutes

Preparation: Make enough sets of Text 1 below so there is one set per group of five students. The sections need to be cut up so that you can give each student one section. If you do not have enough students to have five students working together, have groups of three or four and give one or two of the students more than one section.

Make enough copies of Text 2 so that each student in a group of five will have a set of the questions (each person in a group of five gets one set of 7 questions). Make enough copies of Text 3 so that each group has one copy of it

.

Procedure:

1. Divide students into groups of five and give each student in a group one of the sections of Text 1. Their aim as a group is to put the five sections of the text in order. Students work alone and read through their section, discuss the ideas of the section with their group and then put the five sections in order. They should not use dictionaries for this activity or show other members of the group their part of the article. Quickly review answers as a class.

2. Give each student in a group a set of Text 2 questions. The student who has Section 1 (the first part) of the article must not get the Student 1 questions. They can go to anyone else in the group. This rule applies for all the sets of questions. The student who has the Student 1 questions will be asking the student with Section 1 of the article for the answers. Students work to find the answers to their questions and help other group members answer their questions.

3. Students complete the Text 3 tasks.

HANDOUTS

Text 1 - To Be Copied And Given To Students:




earthquake

Text 2 - To Be Copied And Given To Students:

Text 3 - To Be Copied And Given To Students:
Part One:
Work together in your groups. Fill in the correct numbers in this sentence using your knowledge of how the Richter scale works.

Part Two:
Take turns to explain to other people in your group (without looking at the article) what the Richter Scale really measures and what it means.

ANSWER KEY:

Text 1 - Answers
Part One
The order of the different sections: 1 - Section B, 2 - Section D, 3 - Section A, 4 - Section E, 5 - Section C.

Text 2 - Answers
Student 1
1. The measure of the strength of an earthquake
2. India had a huge earthquake that measured 7.9 on the Richter scale
3. It killed hundreds of people.
4. Taiwan
5. In September 1999
6. It killed 2,400 people.
7. No, they could only estimate (guess)

Student 2
1. 31 times more energy.
2. In 1935.
3. Charles F. Richter because he invented the scale.
4. The 12-point Mercalli scale.
5. An earthquake's effects.
6. They measure the amount of energy released by an earthquake.
7. It starts at number one with each unit (or number) 10 times greater than the previous number.

Student 3
1. Logarithmic
2. No (they usually don't feel them)
3. How far the seismograph is from the earthquake.
4. With earthquake seismic systems that use the latest technology. The systems use telephones lines and satellites to link to a central computer, which give the results of how strong an earthquake is.
5. 2.0 on the Richter scale or less.
6 Because they are so small, local seismographs only record them.
7. No damage as people don't often feel them.

Student 4
1. 4.5 or greater
2. Several thousand
3. There is one big earthquake a year that registers 8.1 or more on the Richter scale.
4. They are the largest sizes (magnitudes) of earthquakes that are known to have happened.
5. They have all had earthquakes greater than 8 on the Richter scale since 1900.
6. China
7. More than 830,000 people died.

Student 5
1. It measures the effects of the earthquake rather than the strength of an earthquake.
2. Furniture would shake and church bells would ring, but not much damage would result.
3. Total destruction of buildings and the surface of the land.
4. Russia and Japan
5. They could look up the site www.neic.cr.usgs.gov on a computer.
6. China experienced the worst earthquake in its modern history. It registered at 7.8 on the Richter scale.
7. It was completely destroyed.

Text 3 - Answers
Part One: a.10 b.100 c.1000.

w100121QUAKEf

Write my paper for me

To be successful in life, you need a university education. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
The fact is, a university education is what you make of it. Half the students will graduate with a solid direction or goal, but the other half will still be as unclear about their next career move as they were when they started. Granted, a university education is essential if you want to have a career in a profession such as law, engineering, teaching, or medicine but it does not guarantee you a job; many graduates are unemployed or have to get work in other fields. Also, you do not necessarily need a university degree to become a wealthy movie star, sports star or businessperson; look at Tiger Woods, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates for example.


Via: SNHU.EDU

A university education can help you achieve some types of success, but it does not guarantee success in the work force or indeed, in other areas of your life.



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