Natural Disasters Incursion (Levels 5/6)

In this exciting 90-minute incursion, students explore how natural disasters occur and learn about the forces that control our planet’s geography. They investigate the water cycle, tornadoes, earth’s spin, tectonic plates, and model volcanic activity under the water. This incursion challenges students to think about how sudden geological changes can affect the earth’s surface; making it perfect for later year levels. Our passionate science educators carefully guide students through each step, prompting students to predict, observe and reflect on each activity.

• Students use models and experiments to investigate how sudden geological changes and extreme weather can affect the earth’s surface.

• Discussing prior knowledge of natural disasters and the variables that affect their unpredictability.
• Observing a model of the water cycle, and the relationships between temperature and water movement.
• Observing a demonstration of a hot air balloon and discussing how it relates to air movement.
• Modelling the spinning of the earth, wind direction and the formation of tornadoes.
• Exploring erosion and the effect of extreme weather on the landscape.
• Learning about the tectonic plates and how earthquakes occur. 
• Experimenting with a simple seismograph.
• Modelling volcanic activity on land and underwater.

• Sudden geological changes or extreme weather conditions can affect Earth’s surface (VCSSU079).
• Scientific understandings, discoveries and inventions are used to inform personal and community decisions and to solve problems that directly affect people’s lives (VCSSU073).
• With guidance, pose questions to clarify practical problems or inform a scientific investigation, and predict what the findings of an investigation might be based on previous experiences or general rules (VCSIS082).
• Communicate ideas and processes using evidence to develop explanations of events and phenomena and to identify simple cause-and-effect relationships (VCSIS088).