Alignment with California Science Content Standards  

Grade 5:
6. a – i

Grade 6:
1. d, e, g 7. a – h

Grade 7:
7. a – e

Grade 8:
9. a – g

Earthquake Preparedness Lesson Plan

After learning about the difficulty of predicting earthquakes students will learn what they can do to prepare for an earthquake by developing their own earthquake preparedness plan. Students should watch both videos “Preparing for an earthquake” and “Surviving an earthquake” on the dare to prepare website.

To access both videos, click on the links below.

Preparing for an Earthquake Video
Surviving an Earthquake Video

Students can also incorporate material from other lessons including the ECLA video sections on “Reducing your losses” and "Northridge Earthquake" to make their own earthquake preparedness plan. Other sources of information that are good to refer to are: ESP Focus fact sheet and the Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety.

In order to stimulate thought for this activity you should ask students to imagine themselves in a situation where an earthquake suddenly occurs, for example, in a car, subway, at school, home, in the middle of the night etc.

• What can they do to protect themselves during the earthquake (e.g. drop, cover and hold on)
• What should they do if they are indoors when an earthquake occurs?
• What should they do if they are outdoors when an earthquake occurs?

In addition,

• What items should they include in their earthquake preparedness kit to make sure that they can survive after an earthquake (e.g. food, water, medications etc…)?
• How will they re-connect with family members and loved ones if the earthquake occurs during school hours?
• How many earthquake kits should they have (e.g. one for the house and one for the car)?

Have students write down their own earthquake preparedness plan and share with the class that way students can remind each other to include something in their plan that they might have forgotten.

As a follow up or homework activity, you can assign students a home hazard hunt worksheet to encourage them to search for hazards in their own homes. Below is  a suggested home hazard hunt worksheet from the Red Cross Masters of Disaster.

Home Hazard Hunt (English, Spanish)

A similar home hazard worksheet from FEMA's Tremor Troop publication can be found here.