Earthquake Survival Plan
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Approach:  Team
ACCESS
Level: Year 4 and year 8
Focus: Justifying appropriate information sources  
Resources:
Set of 12 pictures [simulated resource shown below], chart
FRAME 225Kb
Questions/instructions:  


Imagine your principal has asked your group to come up with an earthquake survival plan for your school.

Here is a set of pictures showing people you can ask for help. Look at these pictures and decide on the four people who could give you the best help making your survival plan. You will need to think of reasons why they would be good people to help you.
[Click on images to enlarge.]
cards

Discuss who would be the most suitable people to help you develop your survival plan. When you are ready I will ask you to tell me which people you would choose and why. You will have a chart to put the four pictures onto. Here are the pictures and the chart. I’ll read the picture cards to you.

Read picture captions and put pictures and chart on table. Allow time.
Now tell me the four people you would choose to help you to come up with an earthquake survival plan for your school. First, read what it tells you about each person on their card, then tell me how that person could help you with your plan. All of you can help to tell me how each person could help you.

After students read what is on the card say:
Tell me how that person could help you with your plan.


% responses
2009 ('05)
       
y4
y8
First response given:
[These are the responses for the first person the teams selected. The responses for the other three selections show a similar pattern.]
librarian
5 (0)
3 (2)
civil engineer
6 (7)
16 (9)
householder
17 (23)
14 (19)
Civil Defence worker
17 (16)
13 (7)
great-grandparent
13 (12)
9 (7)
doctor
5 (7)
1 (3)
first-aid teacher
10 (7)
14 (12)
builder
1 (0)
1 (0)
rescue worker
4 (7)
4 (5)
seismologist
17 (19)
20 (24)
OSH worker
3 (2)
6 (12)
teacher
2 (0)
0 (0)
anything else (or none)
1 (0)
0 (0)
Justification for choosing person 1:
very strong
7 (11)
14 (17)
reasonable (specific to school needs)
21 (18)
40 (26)
weak
28 (32)
28 (29)
only read card or no response
44 (40)
18 (28)
Justification for choosing person 2:
very strong
8 (5)
12 (12)
reasonable (specific to school needs)
13 (20)
27 (28)
weak
23 (21)
31 (35)
only read card or no response
56 (54)
30 (26)
Justification for choosing Person 3:
very strong
4 (9)
12 (9)
reasonable (specific to school needs)
26 (5)
28 (29)
weak
21 (30)
28 (35)
only read card or no response
50 (56)
32 (28)
Justification for choosing person 4:
very strong
3 (4)
18 (7)
reasonable (specific to school needs)
18 (7)
35 (32)
weak
23 (35)
23 (35)
only read card or no response
57 (54)
24 (26)

Total score:
8–12
7 (5)
22 (19)
6–7
11 (7)
26 (25)
4–5
19 (21)
25 (21)
2–3
32 (32)
18 (21)
0–1
31 (34)
8 (14)
Commentary:
This was a difficult task for the year 4 children, with most teams not being able to come up with any justification for their choices, or only a weak response. There was marked improvement in the year 8 teams. The selections that students made were fairly similar at year 4 and year 8. Slight growth in the quality of the justifications was seen at both levels over the previous administration. Subgroup comparisons are not possible because this was a team task.