More Tsunami Letters

March 11, 2011

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Dear Me,

   My class couldn't go to the whale watching field trip.  All the beaches are closed.  I will tell you why they are all closed.
   There was an earthquake in the ocean floor.  The earthquake happened in Japan.  I saw it on the news and was surprised.  I was glad we didn't go.
   It was a tsunami.  Mud slides, broken homes, and mass destruction.  People have to go to high ground to stay safe.  I saw pictures of destruction Ms. A.  put for the class from her computer.
   The destructions were so horrible I feel so sorry for those people.  People died, houses flooded, and buildings were destroyed.  Even a bridge with cars on it were destroyed.
   I'm so glad my class didn't go whale watching.  Yet I still feel upset, but hey I'm not complaining.  I also feel sorry for those people who died, but that's life.

Love,
Alan

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Dear Me,

     We didn't go on our field trip.  We didn't go on the field trip because of a tsunami.  The tsunami was in Japan.
     There were plates crashing into each other in Japan.  It made an earthquake in Japan that was 8.9.  It happened on March 11, 2011 in the afternoon.  The lights were flashing and some turned off.
     The earthquake made a big big tsunami.  The tsunami killed kids and parents.  There were mudslides and it flood villages, farms, buildings, and houses.  People in Japan lost everything.  Some people alerted Hawaii.  They evacuated Hawaians to higher ground.
     I feel sad for the Japanese people and my class.  I feel sad for the Japanese because of what happened.  I feel sad for us because we couldn't go on our whale watching trip.

Yourself,
Brenda

Tsunami Letters--Do Not Open Until March 11, 2021

As I mentioned in a previous post, we had to cancel our whale watching field trip because of a tsunami advisory.  The 9.0 earthquake in Japan on March 11 triggered a tsunami that made its way across the Pacific Ocean and into the waters of California.  We were forced to postpone our much-awaited whale watching trip that day.

The tsunami was definitely one of those teachable moments.  World-wide events affected our little classroom in Highland Park.  So, instead of boating out in Long Beach Harbor, my kids and I watched videos of the tsunami.  Then they wrote letters to themselves "in the future" about their experience.  They sealed the letters in envelopes that said, "Do not open until March 11, 2021."  Here is one of those letters:

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March 11, 2011

Dear Linda,
    Today our class didn't go to our field trip to go to Long Beach on a boat to go whale watching because today a very important thing happened.  In Japan there was a 8.9 earthquake.  When the earthquake happened two plates crashed into each other and started a tsunami.
    At March 10, 2011 there was an earthquake.  This earthquake was so big that it was an 8.9 earthquake and because it started a tsunami.   The earthquake lasted for about a couple of minutes.  And after that there were so many after shocks.
    After the earthquake there was a tsunami.  This tsunami killed alot of Japanese people and it also flooded all the houses and it also destroyed it by mud slides.  The tsunami went from Japan to Hawaii and to California.  That's why we didn't go to the field trip today.  The Hawaiians had to evacuate to higher ground.  Many buildings got destroyed and Hawaiians had to get on a roof of a building.  Many Japanese people lost everything.  And many houses got flooded.
    I am so sorry to those Japanese people.  They lost everything and their city or country got destroyed.  I'm very lucky that we didn't go to the field trip today and I think my mom was so happy that I didn't go to the field trip today.

Your best friend,
Linda

The Day the Earth Stood Still - NOT!

Last Thursday my phone rang at 11:17 pm.  Since I'm a teacher, the alarm goes off early (4:45 am), so I pretty much crash out by 9pm.  I was in deep rem sleep.

It was my brother.  He called to tell me that an 8.9 earthquake just hit Japan, and that a tsunami was making its way across the Pacific and was expected to hit the shores of California in about 10 hours.  He was concerned--he was at a friend's in Redondo Beach and they were deciding whether to evacuate.

Ten hours???  I was going to be on a boat in Long Beach Harbor in 10 hours! This would be the day of our whale watching trip.  This was the trip that the kids held a bake sale to raise money ($750).  This was the trip that we have been talking about--how to behave on a boat, what to bring, how to recognize a whale in the water.  We were well-prepared for the trip, but not for a tsunami.

I watched CNN for about an hour and learned that the tsunami would hit Hawaii at around 5 am, so I went to bed.  When I woke up in a few hours, the waves had certainly hit Hawaii and were still coming.  Online I found out that a "tsunami advisory" had been issued for the coast south of Point Concepcion.  That would be us.  Even though the waves would be no higher than about 3 feet. going whale watching just seemed to be a bad idea.  Imagine the worst case scenario--Fourth Graders Perish in Whale Watching Accident as Teachers Ignore Coast Guard Warnings.

So yes, we called off the trip.  The kids were disappointed, but many of the parents who showed up to school thanked me for canceling.  It was a tough call, but there were plenty of lessons to learn.

I seized on one of those great teachable moments to have the kids do research on the tsunami.  We watched videos of the earthquake and devastation.  We looked at diagrams showing how a tsunami is created.

And then my kids wrote letters.  They wrote letters to themselves in the future, talking about the day that an 8.9 earthquake halfway around the world affected them personally.  They sealed the letters and wrote, "Do not open until March 11, 2021."

Global events always affect us--we just aren't always aware of it.  But in the case of the great earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11, 2011, our world got a lot smaller.