Each module consists of a student book and a teacher's guide. In Earthquakes, students investigate where and why earthquakes happen, what effects they can have on people's lives, and how the risks of injury from earthquakes can be reduced by the careful design of buildings and structures. Among the activities in the unit, students use latitude and longitude to find the location of a number of earthquakes and to get a sense of where the major earthquake zones in the world are. They correlate the location of earthquake activity withplate boundaries. They also construct a model with a fish tank and pieces of wood to understand what happens at the edges of plates.
Students use coiled springs to investigate different types of waves created during an earthquake.
They use the Mercalli scale of earthquake intensitytogether with information from the library to assess effects of earthquakes. In the unit's final activity, students design, build, and test models of earthquake-resistant buildings or structures. Earthquakes is a 3-week module divided into 6 activities, which each take between 1 and 6 class periods to complete. A narrative section at the end of the module provides background information for students on detecting earthquakes. The wraparound teacher's guide includes a unit overview, a time line for completing the module, a materials list, background information, and teaching suggestions.