A natural disaster is a natural event such as a flood, earthquake, or hurricane that causes great damage or loss of life (Lexico Dictionaries, 2019).

In class we have been learning about natural disasters. I was keen to start the topic as I enjoyed geography in High school. Natural disasters can cause a huge amount of damage to the environment and the people living in it. It can cause loss of life and property damage leaving a lot of economic damage. Some of them are avalanches, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and volcanic eruptions. I found this input helpful as I grew an awareness that some pupils may find this topic challenging due to the harsh reality of the subject. This topic may be quite sensitive for some pupils so as a teacher I would need to be aware of the maturity levels in the class.

Natural disasters have economic, social and environmental consequences, the severity of it depends on the population affected resilience and ability to recover. As part of our input we learned about two contrasting countries and how they dealt with natural disasters. This was insightful as it showed that the rate at which it can recover, based on how prepared the country was for the disaster in the first place. This activity would be effective to teach in a classroom as it would show that factors such as wealth and education can help with recovery. Developing countries death tolls tends to be high but the short-term economic costs are often quite low. Whereas in a developed country, the death toll tends to be relatively low but the short-term economic costs can be exceedingly high (BBC, 2019). Developing countries long-term situation can be more complicated as it often takes more time to repair damage.

This video below explains how natural disasters affect developing countries and would be insightful for pupils to hear.

In our first input we developed research skills, critical skills and collaborative skills.

Research skill : Allows us to identify a problem, collect informational resources that can help address the problem, evaluate these resources for quality and relevance and come up with an effective solution to the problem (Reachivy.com, 2017). This part of the input was helpful as it is an important life skill to learn.

Critical skills: Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. The ability to think clearly and rationally is important whatever we choose to do. (Lau, 2019).

Critical thinking-

• Enhances language and presentation skills.
•  Promotes creativity.
•  Crucial for self-reflection.

Collaborative skills:  A more collaborative approach to teaching can increase the likelihood that students will succeed (Loop, 2019). Teachers discussing lesson-planning ideas with each other or classroom activities can allow them to share ideas and give feedback to one another to help improve the quality of the lesson.

In addition to this part of the input we also participated in four different experiments that provided a great visual element that was also interactive and fun. We used a bunsen burner to make a volcano, smashed rocks, made a volcano and made fossils. I found that these experiments would be highly appreciated in a classroom as children love experiments in which there is a lot of mess. The volcano experiment would be a great experiment to carry out with pupils as it only required two ingredients – vinegar and baking soda. I also thought the smashing up the rocks experiment would also be a fun experiment as it is very practical and would show the pupils what an earthquake would be like. The downside to this experiment is that you would need to rely that your pupils will be careful with the hammer.

Our last input of natural disasters was a task to come up with a lesson plan to teach natural disasters in a classroom. Natural disasters are constantly a reoccurring topic in the news and can provide a topic of conversation for pupils, as some will have some basic knowledge on the subject already. We were tasked to create a presentation in groups of 5-6. Our groups topic was tornadoes. This allowed me to use my research, critical and collaborative skills from the previous session as we worked on our slides separately then had two meetings as a group to give feedback and bounce ideas off each other. I found this task very helpful as I realised that coming up with a fun and interactive lesson was not as hard as I first thought.

This video would be good to play in class as it is easy to follow and suitable for a primary setting.

Every group had a different topic to present on. Listening to all the groups present their talks was interesting and informative as every group had come up with different approaches to how they would teach the topic. This inspired me and gave me many ideas that I would like to take on to my classroom one day.

Bbc.co.uk. (2019). Natural Hazards. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxh4wxs/revision/3 [Accessed 5 Nov. 2019].

Lau, J. (2019). What is critical thinking?. [online] Philosophy.hku.hk. Available at: https://philosophy.hku.hk/think/critical/ct.php [Accessed 5 Nov. 2019].

Lexico Dictionaries | English. (2019). Natural Disaster | Definition of Natural Disaster by Lexico. [online] Available at: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/natural_disaster [Accessed 5 Nov. 2019].

Loop, E. (2019). Mentoring Students in Schools | Synonym. [online] Classroom.synonym.com. Available at: https://classroom.synonym.com/mentoring-students-schools-15705.html [Accessed 5 Nov. 2019].

Reachivy.com. (2017). [online] Available at: https://www.reachivy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Why-Are-Research-Skills-Important_-How-Do-I-Develop-Them_.pdf [Accessed 5 Nov. 2019].