Science Lesson Plan
Brittany Croy
Steffi Meinhart
Kristen Willis
Natural Disasters Shape the Land and Surface
Grade Level: 4th
Overview: This lesson plan is designed for fourth graders and encompasses the effects that
volcanoes, earthquakes and landslides generate on our Earth’s surface and land. The students
will watch a short clip detailing natural disasters and then participate in a group activity to
furthermore enhance their learning on these disasters and their vast effects on shaping our land.
Learning Objectives
After the following activity, students will be able to:



Teaching Standards
Explain the different characteristics between an
earthquake, volcano and landslide
Understand the effects that an earthquake, volcano and
landslide have on the shape of the land
Compare and contrast how an earthquake, volcano and
landslide change the shape of the land
Earth and Space Science: SCI.4.2.3:
 Describe how earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides
suddenly change the shape of the land.
Required Materials






Procedures
1. To begin, the teacher will show the class a PowerPoint
regarding the three different natural disasters.
2. Pair the students into groups with their assigned mentors.
Assign each group a natural disaster and have them draw
a picture of how they think their natural disaster will alter
or change the land. Allow the students 10 minutes.
3. After the students have finished their group drawings,
have all the students who drew their predictions on
earthquakes come to the front of the classroom to share.
(Repeat with both the volcano and landslide groups).
Allow 3-5 minutes for each group to share.
4. Once all the groups have finished sharing, show the class
a YouTube video on these natural disasters and their
effects on Earth’s land. Use the computer and projector
screen to show the class the video.
Computer
Projector Screen
PowerPoint Presentation
Poster Boards
Coloring Utensils
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2h6uXlL8gI
Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Landslides
Science Lesson Plan
5. Following the YouTube video, have the students regroup
and create a compare/contrast chart regarding the
different disasters. Mentors should help students make
their charts. At the end of the lesson, collect each groups
chart to be graded.
Assessment

As stated above, students will be assessed and graded on
their groups chart based on the rubric below:
1 point
Students
made 3 or
more
grammatical
errors
Students
provided 03 facts on
their chart
2 points
Students
made 2 or
less
grammatical
errors
Students
provided 46 facts on
their chart
Students
Group
Contribution made no
contribution
to group
chart
Students
made little
effort and
contribution
towards
group chart
Grammar
Context and
Information
3 points
Students
made no
grammatical
errors
Students
provided 7
or more
facts on
their chart
Students
fully
contributed
to the group
chart
References

Fuhrmann S, Stone L, Casey M, et al. Teaching Disaster Preparedness in Geographic
Education. Journal of Geography. 2008;107(3):112-120.
The article Teaching Disaster Preparedness in Geographic Education emphasizes the
potential dangers associated with natural disasters and explores ways that K-12 teachers can
educate students about natural disasters. The article provides sample lesson plans that teach
about natural disasters and disaster preparedness based on the National Geography Standards.
The article asserts that spatial thinking and decision making skills are two of the most
important skills to make sure students have when teaching about disaster preparedness.
Additionally, the article provides links to several websites that simulate natural disasters and
the effects they have on Earth. This article helped us make our lesson plan by inspiring us to
find the video clip of natural disasters to show to the students. We are having the students
draw pictures of how they predict a natural disaster will change the shape of the Earth to gain
decision making skills.
Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Landslides
Science Lesson Plan

Gilstrap, Tatiana, Peter Sheldon, and Peggy Schimmoeller. "Shake It Up.."
Science and Children 47.8 (2010): 32-35. Education Full Text. Web. 2 Oct.
2013.
This article is about a teacher who decided to have their students build a small house
using paper, washers, paper clips, Styrofoam pillars, pipe cleaners, and straws to see how
well their house can stand during an earthquake. After the houses are built, the students will
predict just how well the other students’ houses will stand during the shake test. The teacher
will then conduct the shake tests and once the results are in, the students will talk about how
they could improve their house to make it shake less, and be more durable. I really like this
idea and I think fourth and fifth graders would be really excited to be a part of something like
this.

Maltese, Adam. "Shake, Rattle, and Hopefully Not Fall." Science and Children 46.8
(2009): 40. Education Full Text. Web. 2 Oct. 2013.
This article is about a science teacher who had his students create a “building” out of
toothpicks and glue over a four week time period, and then have the students’ projects go
through a shake test and a loaded test. The tests represented an earthquake because they had
been learning about earthquakes and the effects they have on land. The teacher wanted to
incorporate real-world application and to make the connections with the content taught. This
is a little bit like what my group is doing for our lesson plan, so I thought this was the perfect
article to use.

Schaad DE, Franzoni LP, Paul C, Bauer A, Morgan K. A perfect storm: Examining
natural disasters by combining traditional teaching methods with servicelearning and innovative technology. International Journal of Engineering
Education. 2008; 24(3):450-465.
The article A perfect storm: Examining natural disasters by combining traditional
teaching methods with service-learning and innovative technology discusses a servicelearning course being taught that educates students about natural disasters. The article
highlights several key components that should be covered when teaching about natural
disasters. Some key components to include are factors that cause natural disasters, how
societies plan for disasters, and how societies respond to disasters. The article also suggests
using case studies so that students gain perspective of how real life natural disasters change
the world. We tried to incorporate aspects of the key components into the PowerPoint used in
our lesson plan.

Jibson, Randall, Edwin L. Harp. “Landslides triggered by the Northridge earthquake.”
Earthquakes & Volcanoes. 1997. 25(1): 31. Web. 7 Oct. 2013.
This article, “Landslides Triggered by the Northridge Earthquake,” discussed the
distribution and specific types of landslides triggered by an earthquake. Relating to our Case
2, this article represents a science segment of the STEM research and additionally relates to
our standard that will be featured in our lesson plan. The standard embodies how volcanoes,
earthquakes and landslides can affect the land and surface of our Earth. The landslides
Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Landslides
Science Lesson Plan
discussed in this article caused great damage- they disrupted water mains and sewers,
destroyed homes and non-residential buildings and even damaged oil and gas production
facilities. This article is helping in showing real life situations and effects of these natural
disasters. For our case, we are having our students predict how natural disasters will affect
the land and surface of our Earth.

Fetihi, Leyla, Hulya Gulay. “The Effect of Earthquake Awareness Development Program
(EADP) on 6 Year Old Children.” International Online Journal of Educational
Sciences. 2011. 3(2): 663-678. Education Full Text. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.
This article went into great detail regarding how earthquakes occur and the drastic effects
they can produce. Furthermore, the article emphasized the importance of young children’s
awareness and consciousness of earthquakes and how to protect themselves from these
dangerous disasters. I found this article to be quite beneficial with our Case 2 project. For our
lesson, we are having the students watch a video clip to show them the harmful effects that
natural disasters are capable of producing. Following our lesson, we hope that our students
will take away the knowledge regarding these different natural disasters and the awareness of
how to protect themselves if these were to ever occur in their lifetime.
Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Landslides
Science Lesson Plan
Earthquakes
Volcanoes
Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Landslides
Landslides