Free Printable Earthquakes, Tsunami Lesson Plans

Spring means severe weather and increased concern for natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes. Here are free printable weather science lesson plans on natural disasters, fire safety, emergency preparedness and other severe weather issues.

NOAA, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, has free printable severe weather science lesson plans. Print materials from the NWS (National Weather Service) and the Red Cross. There is a series of free printable severe weather science booklets from the Red Cross on Owlie Skywarn, an owl who teaches children about different kinds of weather. Owlie covers thunder storms, tornadoes, lightning, floods, hurricanes and winter storms. The booklet is 44 pages long and contains free printable coloring pages. Learn about severe weather with Billy and Maria. These children explore storms, lightning, hurricanes, fire safety and emergency preparedness in free printablesevere weather coloring pages, puzzles, word searches and weather experiments.

NOAA has a free printable booklet about the tsunamis and earthquakes with Tommy Tsunami and Ernie Earthquake. It explores the relationship between the two phenomena. This booklet is 15 pages long and has several activities for weather science units. There is a free printable guide to make a weather satellite, too.

Ready.gov is the homepage for free printable emergency safety kids activities from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Children can follow Herman the hermit crab as he teaches children about emergency preparedness, weather science, natural disasters, This site helps children create emergency safety response plans.

Spring severe weather science is also concerned with wildfires which are sparked by droughts. October is offical Fire Prevention month. You could follow up weather science units with science lessons on wildfires and fire safety. Visit Sparky.for free printable fire safety and emergency safety games, coloring pages and activities about fire prevention. Over 75 years ago, a little bear was discovered wandering alone after wildfires, then called a forest fires, took his home. He was namedSmokey Bear and he became the voice for forest rangers and fire prevention. Get free printable fire emergency safety help there too.

Ready.gov is a natural disasters emergency preparedness website maintained by FEMA with free printable severe weather resources, lesson plans, emergency planning kits and lots of resources. Ready.gov teaches students about natural disasters and weather-related emergency safety. You'll find lesson plans and activities for wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, storm safety, floods, blizzards, droughts and more. The focus of the website is two-pronged: Make an Emergency Plan and Get a Kit. Ready.gov provides printable checklists to prepare for disaster.

Children might read The Big Wave by Pearl S. Buck to learn more about tidal waves (now called tsunamis). The Big Wave is a 1948 story of a Japanese family's experiences following a tsunami. After the 2004 tsunami, Scholastic Books made copies of this book available at reduced rates, to help children understand the event.This books explains floods and hurricane storm surges like the one that drowned New Orleans and much of the gulf coast in Hurricane Katrina of 2005.

Free Printable Physical Science and Physics Lesson Plans

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) offers a plethora of free printable physics lesson plans. Some must be ordered but there are many free printable science activities are available online. Concepts include space travel, solar system, robotics education, technology, physics, astronomy and more. There are free printable solar system physics activities featuring Disney Pixar's WALL-E called Mapping the Moon with WALL-E. Click on the links "K-4 Guide" and "5-8 Guide" for printable teacher materials and lesson plans. A popular free robotics education activity is the Mission to Mars Curiosity Rover packet that include games, coloring pages, 3D models to cut and paste, quizzes, worksheets and extensions,

Cornell University Cooperative Extension partners with 4-H to provide 4-H Robotics education program. 4-H Robotics education includes physics simulations, robotics education and physical science games. There are hands-on and virtual online physical science activities. There's a charge for materials but some free activities. These STEM activities could be used for Destination Imagination programs.

The SMILE program (from the Illinois Institute of Technology) is a warehouse of free printable STEM activities, robotics education activities and physics lesson plans, Science lesson plans cover basic physical science concepts like weather, water, states of matter, Periodic Table of the Elements, friction, gravity, mass, inertia, electricity and magnetism. Smithsonian Science and Technology hasfree printable physics lesson plans that correlate with exhibits in the Smithsonian museums. There are many free printable physical science activities on flight, aviation and rocketry.

The Michigan Science Center offers free printable physical science activities to help students extend their experience at the museum or use as stand-alone lessons. Activities are perfect for elementary physics, science and machine technology classes. MIT is the leader in universities of higher education in science. Here are free MIT video lectures, demonstrations and interviews that students could really benefit from in their physical science studies. The Henry Ford has a huge collection of free printable STEM activities and educator resources on science, history and physics, from the Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village and Rouge Factory in Dearborn, Michigan.