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There’s little worse than a teacher who ignores a real-life tragedy and trudges ahead with the lesson plan of the day without even a mention of the event. Your students may want (or need) to discuss this weekend’s deadly earthquake in Chile, especially as it is on the heels of Haiti’s recent disaster. Remember – even grim topics such as these can be teachable moments.

The United States Geological Survey is an amazing site where students can retrieve primary source data to use in your classroom discussions and projects on the topic. For example:
? Students may feel nervous and uneasy. They may fear the possibility of a quake where they live. Use the USGS site (under “Location” in the left-hand nav) to see a history of earthquake activity where they live.
? It may seem to students that earthquakes are always huge deadly events. A quick check of the map displaying quakes that occurred in the last 8 to 30 days should help them to understand the prevalence of these events.
? Have you been teaching your students how to interpret earthquake data and need a few data sets? Click on any earthquake icon on any map on this site and get all of the data you could want – from historic moment tensor data to phase data to P-Wave travel times – here’s an example.
? Got the kids wondering how we know all this stuff? Take them on a tour of all of the United State’s monitoring equipment – complete with photographs of the actual equipment on location.

Can’t think of a good lesson to use in covering earthquakes? The USGS has you covered there as well. Check out the Students & Teachers section for lesson suggestions at all levels, from elementary through college.
This topic is easy to teach in a science class. Do you, dear reader, have any ideas how to address this teachable moment in the other disciplines?