Natural Disasters

Natural disasters are all over the media nearly every day. Students are very interested in these destructive events, which make them a great item to study. I think a good way to have fifth graders study the different natural disasters is to do a jigsaw puzzle activity. Divide the students into groups, then assign the different groups different natural disasters such as: earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc. The students could research what the natural disaster is, how it is caused, what warning signs there are, how to survive, and what can be done for disaster stricken areas. Throughout the students' research, they can gather data to be presented to the rest of the class. Doing a jigsaw activity like this creates ownership of a disaster for the group doing the research, and it saves time as each group will study a disaster in-depth to be shared with the rest of the group.