June 21, 2017 : Earth Shake

The Mini Page is a syndicated, four-page tabloid written for young children found each Wednesday in The Denver Post. This issue of The Mini Page is available through the eEdition Archive to registered eEdition subscribers

Click here to download the PDF for this lesson

Activities:

1. Draw a picture of your room during a mild earthquake. What items in your room would stay in place? What items might fall on the floor or be thrown around? What could you do to see that fewer things might be broken if there was a mild earthquake.

2. Write the letters E - A - R - T - H - Q - U - A - K - E down the left side of a piece of paper. Now find newspaper words that describe earthquakes and begin with the each of the letters.

3. Pretend you want as many unbreakable things in your house as possible. In the newspaper, circle household items, furniture, dinnerware/cookware and appliances that could stand being shaken and thrown about, but would probably still be in good shape. Explain your choices.

4. Why are these important to understand about earthquakes: (a) tectonic plates, ( b) the Ring of Fire, (c) faults and (d) fracking?

5. Collect news stories about fracking in various places in the United States. What problems are identified in the stories? What are the positive aspects of fracking mentioned? What do the articles say about the occurrence of earthquakes before the fracking started and after it was used? What do you think about fracking?

Mini Page activities meet many state and national educational standards. Each week we identify standards that relate to The Mini Page content and offer activities that will help your students reach them.

This week's standard:
Students understand that Earth’s events can occur quickly or slowly. (Earth’s Place in the Universe)

(standards by Dr. Sherrye D. Garrett, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)