Primary School level activities

1. Know the Disaster

Group size: Entire Class

Duration: 30 – 45 minutes

Objective: To better understand the disaster

Activity: Take a basin of still water and place two blocks of wood side by side with their edges touching, and then raise one quickly, and subsequently lower it. Students will be able to learn how waves form, and how they travel away from the point of displacement.

Another analogy that can be used is to ask the class to consider throwing a pebble into a pond. The ripples could be compared to waves. A tsunami is something like this in reverse, where the force comes from underwater, and not above it.

Once the students have understood all this, explanations could proceed to how and why the tsunami caused such damage, again by comparing things to scale. Point out how small a human is compared to a twenty-foot wave. A comparison that could be made to good effect is the tug of the sea when someone stands on the beach. A foot high wave can knock a small child off balance, clearly emphasizing the damage a much larger wave could cause.

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2. Drawings

Duration: 1.5 – 2.0 hours

Provide paper and colour pencils for students to draw the following

• Houses that they think will not be damaged by the tsunami. Let them be creative. Ex: Houses on stilts, houses that can stay submerged like submarines, houses that float, houses with periscopes sticking out instead of chimneys …
• A refugee camp
• New houses being built
• A tsunami picture of their own choice from the ‘Children of Tsunami’ videos.

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3. Writing

Duration: 20 - 30 minutes

Get the students to write on one of the following topics

• An essay about one of the ‘Children of Tsunami’.
• A letter of support to one of the ‘Children of Tsunami’ or any other known child affected by a natural disaster.
• A poem or song about the ‘Children of Tsunami’.

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Secondary School level activities