Natural Disaster Education in Compassion

A few years ago, during my student teaching experience, I showed students a video of the tsunami that hit Thailand in 2004.  They were stunned to watch as the waves crested onto shore and overran the homes and people sitting on the beaches enjoying their vacations.  It is by watching these natural disasters that students understand them not just in a detached way but on a personal level, learning that the people affected could just as easily be them. 

Within the classroom there are many options available for teaching students to appreciate that humanitarian cause of a natural disaster.  If a natural disaster is occurring at the time of instruction then this is so much more powerful.  They can see how horrible the results can be.  And they can see the story developing and learn as the numbers of casualties, injuries, and costs to repair just keep increasing.  If students are learning about natural disasters without one currently occurring then the first thing I would do is have them read the accounts of a natural disaster.  A creative way to do this would be to take the stories of the people involved in the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906.  This information can be obtained through sites such as Eyewitness to History (http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/sfeq.htm) which provides stories from those that were there.  Through reading these stories, acting them out as if they were the people involved, they will learn the heartache of the devastation. 

To learn about organizations that help the people involved in a natural disaster, I believe that having students work together in cooperative groups to research an organization and then sharing it with the class provides the greatest learning opportunity.  This allows students to find information that is pertinent but also they are able to determine what is most important to them and what affects them most. 

In times of natural disaster schools should band together to help in any way that they can.  I have experienced before having the staff at our middle school compete against the different grade levels in a penny drive.  My favorite part of this was when the different groups brought in quarters, dimes, nickels, and even dollars which they would put into the jars of the other teams which incurred a penalty.  It was a lot of fun, but most importantly it raised money to help people in need.  Every method to get students interested in helping others is open as an option.