Compilation of learning resources related to the 2011 Earthquake in Japan. Includes interactive timelines, visualizations, and lessons on tsunamis, earthquakes, and nuclear energy.

The documents selected for this exhibit are primary sources that historians and other researchers study when they write about historical events. They are a selection from the files created or received by Federal agencies in or near San Francisco at the time of the disaster. They contain eyewitness testimony of the damage of the earthquake, the ensuing fires, and the desolation that was left in their wake.

Tsunami waves can be distinguished from ordinary ocean waves by many factors, including the tremendous amount of energy they carry, the great distance between their wave crests, and their capacity to travel at jetliner speeds across an entire ocean. In this interactive from NOVA Online, explore how the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami -- the deadliest in recorded history -- was triggered, how its waves traveled thousands of kilometers largely unchanged, and what happened once the waves reached coastlines both near and far from their source. Grades 6-12

This site provides 26 films of San Francisco from before and after the Great Earthquake and Fire. The earthquake struck on April 18, 1906, along the San Andreas Fault, damaging most central California cities and killing more than 3,000 people. These films show Market Street, Chinatown, a parade, San Francisco viewed from a balloon, and vast devastation from the 8.3 magnitude earthquake and 3-day fire.

Students will build a city out of sugar cubes, bouillon cubes, and gelatin cubes. The city will be put through simulated earthquakes to see which cube structures withstand the shaking the best.

Using this activity, students will learn about the effects of earthquakes and how various soil types react during an earthquake. This lesson gives students first-hand experience in making design decisions similar to those made in the real world.

The Progressive Era's most controversial environmental issue was the 1908-1913 struggle over federal government approval for building the Hetch Hetchy dam in a remote corner of federally-owned land in California's Yosemite National Park. The city of San Francisco, rebuilding after the devastating 1906 earthquake, believed the dam was necessary to meet its burgeoning needs for reliable supplies of water and electricity. At Congressional hearings on Hetch Hetchy held in 1913, supporters of the plan like Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief Forester of the United States and a noted environmentalist, argued that conservation of natural resources was best achieved through management of the wilderness. Preservationist and Sierra Club founder John Muir did not testify before Congress, but he argued against the Hetch Hetchy plan in this excerpt from his 1912 book, The Yosemite. In the end Congress chose management over aesthetics, voting 43-25 (with 29 abstentions) to allow the Hetch Hetchy dam on federal land.

Students learn about the structure of the earth and how an earthquake happens. In one activity, students make a model of the earth including all of its layers. In a teacher-led demonstration, students learn about continental drift. In another activity, students create models demonstrating the different types of faults.

This site offers frequently asked questions about earthquakes, research on earthquakes, and more. Visitors can follow recent seismic activity around the world, view hazard maps, or learn what a geophysicist does.

This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the tragic story of two Japanese seismologists who disagreed about the threat of earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Today, seismologists in California offer residents a probability of risk that an earthquake might occur.

Students will learn how engineers construct buildings to withstand damage from earthquakes by building their own structure with toothpicks and marshmallows. Students will test how earthquake-proof their buildings are by testing them on an earthquake simulated in a pan of Jell-O.

In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to show how the hills around Los Angeles were formed by earthquakes at small thrust faults that extend outward from the larger San Andreas fault.

Students learn the two main methods to measure earthquakes, the Richter Scale and the Mercalli Scale. They make a model of a seismograph a measuring device that records an earthquake on a seismogram. Students also investigate which structural designs are most likely to survive an earthquake. And, they illustrate an informational guide to the Mercalli Scale.

The history of earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area is plotted on a digital map and analyzed in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

In this activity, students will learn about the Richter Scale for measuring earthquakes. The students will make a booklet with drawings that represent each rating of the Richter Scale.

In this activity, students will learn about the Mercalli Scale for rating earthquakes. Also, students will make a booklet with drawings that represent each rating of the scale.

Students are introduced to our planet's structure and its dynamic system of natural forces through an examination of the natural hazards of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, tsunamis, floods and tornados, as well as avalanches, fires, hurricanes and thunderstorms. They see how these natural events become disasters when they impact people, and how engineers help to make people safe from them. Students begin by learning about the structure of the Earth; they create clay models showing the Earth's layers, see a continental drift demo, calculate drift over time, and make fault models. They learn how earthquakes happen; they investigate the integrity of structural designs using model seismographs. Using toothpicks and mini-marshmallows, they create and test structures in a simulated earthquake on a tray of Jell-O. Students learn about the causes, composition and types of volcanoes, and watch and measure a class mock eruption demo, observing the phases that change a mountain's shape. Students learn that the different types of landslides are all are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Using a small-scale model of a debris chute, they explore how landslides start in response to variables in material, slope and water content. Students learn about tsunamis, discovering what causes them and makes them so dangerous. Using a table-top-sized tsunami generator, they test how model structures of different material types fare in devastating waves. Students learn about the causes of floods, their benefits and potential for disaster. Using riverbed models made of clay in baking pans, students simulate the impact of different river volumes, floodplain terrain and levee designs in experimental trials. They learn about the basic characteristics, damage and occurrence of tornadoes, examining them closely by creating water vortices in soda bottles. They complete mock engineering analyses of tornado damage, analyze and graph US tornado damage data, and draw and present structure designs intended to withstand high winds.

Students are introduced to natural disasters, and learn the difference between natural hazards and natural disasters. They discover the many types of natural hazards avalanche, earthquake, flood, forest fire, hurricane, landslide, thunderstorm, tornado, tsunami and volcano as well as specific examples of natural disasters. Students also explore why understanding these natural events is important to engineers and everyone's survival on our planet.

This lesson invites students to read personal accounts of natural disasters in the U.S. during the late 1800s and early 1990s -- the great Chicago fire (1871), the Johnstown Flood (1889), the San Francisco earthquake and fire (1906), the Titanic (1912), the 1918 Flu Epidemics, the Dust Bowl (1930s-40s). Students research a disaster and create a presentation in which they assume the role of a witness to the event.