16th October International ShakeOut Day

It is International ShakeOut Day, which always falls on the third Thursday of October. The first event occurred in California in 2008 and intended to educate the earthquake-prone state on safety. Over the years, the cause grew, resulting in over 55 million participants in the world. The ShakeOut organisation promotes the most important technique called “Drop, Cover and Hold On” to reduce injury and death. It involves laying on the ground while covering your head and body, preferably under a table.

When I was a child I remember experiencing two earthquakes, but as an adult I feel that Australia seems to have had many more. At school we practise fire drills and lockdowns regularly, but I have never practised what to do in the event of an earthquake. ShakeOut Day is a day when children practise  what to do during an earthquake.

Earthquakes can be terrifying, and it is natural for children and adults to be afraid. According to the  Association of School Psychologists, earthquakes are especially difficult to cope with because they come without warning and are followed by aftershocks. With continued shaking, survivors do not experience a clear end to the crisis. I remember talking to a friend whose niece was a teacher in Christchurch, NZ when they felt as if they were having a run on earthquakes, and this teacher said the biggest problem was being able to ask the young children's questions eg when will the next one be? why are they happening here?

Australia does not typically experience large earthquakes and on average only experiences a single magnitude 5 (or greater) event each year. Understanding whether you are in an earthquake prone area is important so that you can take measures to reduce the potential impacts and know what to do during a disaster.

Queensland Health has published a pamphlet telling parents and caregivers what to do and it includes a picture book story called Birdie and the Earthquake. It is available online and in book format.

There is also an activity book Rocket's Earthquake Safety Activity Book which teaches children the tools they need to stay safe and prepared.  

Your library may have one of these books:

Lily and Niko's childcare class is practicing for the Great ShakeOut™. They learn that the Great ShakeOut™helps prepare them for an earthquake. They learn the basics of what causes an earthquake, how it causes things to fall and break, and how it can sound like a really loud tummy rumble. They also learn where they can go and what they should to (drop, cover, and hold on) to be safe inside buildings, outside, and in a car. At the end of the day they know what to do to be safe during an earthquake.

Many of the general nonfiction books about earthquakes may make your young audience scared so you will need to know your audience well and the books well in order to match them up.

Look for:

 

5th November Tsunami Awareness Day

Quality children's picture books — richly illustrated and often poetically written — can introduce young readers to people, places, and times they might not otherwise experience. 

It's important not to scare children when talking about something powerful and real like a tsunami. Adults need to take care to assure children about how rare these events are and how safe they are where they are living.

Children's books are both a timely and timeless resource because of the way they encourage kids to make a connection to the people and places portrayed. They build upon the news and facts by providing a context for understanding who was affected and what was lost. With the guidance of a parent or teacher, picture books and serialised novels can be used to develop understanding and empathy and perhaps the will to help.

I teach an enrichment group of Year 2 students and often I serialise Pearl Buck's The Big Wave, look at life in Japan through picture books and together with the students research tsunamis. They know what tsunamis are because of the media and they are very aware of natural disasters as they live in a country that has been devastated by bushfires and floods. When I was their age I knew nothing about tsunamis and very little about Japan, but I was a keen reader and I know that I would have loved this unit of work. It would have satisfied my need to read, know more and travel elsewhere. I did know Hokusai's Big Wave painting because my parents had a print of it and it fascinated me. There are so many wonderful picture books that feature it now. See:

• The Great Wave  by Veronique Massenot 

• One Day in Japan with Hokusai by Julia Altman

• Hokusai by Deborah Kogan Ray         

You could choose however to just look at tsunamis and there are enough books for students this age to search out and read. Look for:

• Tsunami! by Kimono Kajikawa and Ed Young

• Kenta and the Big Wave by Ruth Ch

• The Tsunami Quilt by Tammy Yee and Antony Fredericks

These next three books tell the true story of a baby hippo who was orphaned during the Indian Ocean tsunami in 

• Mama: A True Story, in Which a Baby Hippo Loses His Mama During a Tsunami, but Finds a New Home and a New Mama   by Jeanette Winter

•  A Mama for Owen by Marion Dane Bauer and John Butler

• Owen and Mzee: True Story of a Remarkable Friendship by Isabella and Craig Hatkoff

• Wisdom: The Midway Albatross by Darcy Pattison and Kitty Harvill

• Elephant Mountain  by Janeen Brian and Sally Rippin

• Bibile: the True Story of a Baby Orphan Elephant  by Teresa Cannon and Liz Wilks

• Elephant Alert by Jackie French

• Running Wild  by Michael Morpurgo

• High Tide in Hawaii by Mary Pope Osborne

There are these nonfiction texts in the library, but there are many others, many which are more recent:

• Sweeping Tsunamis by Louise and Richard Spilsbury

• Ocean Tides and Tsunamis by Baby Professor 

• Can Surfers Surf on Tsunamis? by Baby Professor

• Understanding Earthquakes and Tsunamis by Olivia Williams

• Tsunamis and Other Natural Disasters by Mary Pope Osborne

• The Tsunami Book by Gillian Jolly

• Earthquakes and Tsunamis by Emily Bone

• The Science of Natural Disasters: The Devastating Truth about Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunamis by Alex Woolf and Andy Rowland

26th April Richter Scale Day

Richter Scale Day. This occasion is an acknowledgement and celebration of the birthday of the man who taught the world how to measure earthquakes – Charles F. Richter. He was born in 1900 and came up with the Richter Scale in 1935 while he was working at the California Institute of Technology. Since then, the world has been able to compare various earthquakes and investigate their relative power for destruction. The worst earthquake occurred in Chile in 1960 and it measured 9.5 on the Richter Scale.

Books about earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, rocks and the earth are among the most borrowed non fiction books after dinosaurs, transport and biographies so the library has a large selection. Earthshake is a stunning collection of poems about the earth and Moo and Moo and the Little Calf Too is a picture book story based upon a real situation created by the 2016 magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Christchurch New Zealand.