Lesson Plan 31

Words in Context
Natural Disasters, Our Environment & Carbon Footprint

Vocabulary

Write the words under the picture.

an earthquake a drought a volcano an avalanche

a flood a forest fire a hurricane a tsunami a tornado

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1. Have any of these events taken place in Austria in the last 50 years?
2. Which ones can you remember or have you heard of from other people?
3. What was the last natural disaster you remember seeing on TV? Where did it happen?
4. In your opinion, what’s the worst natural disaster? Why?
 Partner Work
Choose two natural disasters and answer the questions.

Questions Disaster 1: Disaster 2:

Describe it.

Where does it happen?

How does it affect people?

What can people do?

(Before/After)

Reading Comprehension

An EARTHQUAKE is one of the worst natural disasters on our earth. We think that the ground
we stand on is very stable, but it isn’t. It moves quite a lot. In the last few decades scientists
have been able to find out why earthquakes happen.
Earthquakes happen when there is a sudden vibration in the earth’s crust. Whenever an
earthquake hits us you hear how powerful it is. The Richter Scale is used to rate the magnitude
of earthquakes.
Earthquakes can be caused by a lot of things like volcanoes that suddenly erupt, meteorites that
hit the earth, underground explosions or buildings that fall apart.
But most earthquakes happen because the earth’s plates move.
We only hear about earthquakes once in a while, but they really happen every day. There are
more than 3 million earthquakes every year about 8,000 every day or one every 11 seconds. The
largest earthquake that has ever been registered was at 9.5 on the Richter scale.
But most of them are very weak or they happen in places where nobody lives. Some of them
take place on the sea floor.
On December 26, 2004 a great underwater earthquake near the coast of Indonesia caused the
greatest TSUNAMI in history. 280,000 people died and many coastal villages were wiped out.
The word tsunami comes from the Japanese: tsu means harbour and name means waves. A
tsunami is a series of ocean waves that can travel over hundreds of kilometres at a very high
speed. They are hardly seen in the open water, but when they reach the shallow water near the
coast they get taller and taller – up to 30 metres. The waves are so powerful that they can
destroy everything that gets in their way.
Tsumanis are created by earthquakes on the ocean floor. The energy of the earthquake creates
waves that spread into all directions very quickly. In the open ocean tsunamis can reach a speed
of up to 900 kilometres an hour. When a tsunami approaches the coastline it slows down to
maybe 50 km an hour. The water has nowhere to go so it piles up – in some cases it gets taller
than a ten-story building. It crashes onto the coast and destroys houses, beaches and roads
without difficulty.

1. What can cause an earthquake?

2. What is the Richter Scale?

3. How often do earthquakes happen?

4. What happened on December 26, 2004?

5. What does the word tsunami mean?

6. How are tsunamis created?

Speaking
Think about the advantages and the disadvantages of living in different climates. Look
at the two pictures and:

 describe what you see.  describe ways of life in these climates.

 compare and contrast them.  explain the influence of the climate
on animals and plants.
Discussion
A carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we produce from our daily
activities. Complete the carbon footprint worksheet from energyservices.com and find out
your score.

1. What conclusions can you draw from your score?

2. What improvements could you make to your life?
3. What are some general things people can do to reduce their carbon footprint?

Vocabulary for Reading Comprehension

approaches nähert sich magnitude Bebenstärke
caused verursachte medium-sized mittelgroß
coastal Küsten- movement Bewegung
coastline Küstenlinie occurs erscheint
collapse einstürzen once in a while ab und zu
create erzeugen rate bewerten,
klassifizieren
crust Kruste reach erreichen
damage beschädigen registered registriert
decades Jahrzehnte series Reihe
destroy zerstören shallow Untiefe
developing Entwicklungsländer speed Geschwindigkeit
countries
disasters katastrophen stable stabil
erupt ausbrechen sudden plötzlich
especially insbesondere supplies Vorräte
harbour Hafen take place geschehen
injured verletzt ten-story zehnstöckiges Haus
landslides Erdrutsche treated behandelt
lead to führen zu weak schwach
loose locker wiped out vernichtet
lorry Lastwagen