Summary Page: Geohazards - volcanoes, tsunami, landslides, earthquakes and hydrothermal activity
Term 1 starting 25 February 2014.

Photo: Lloyd Homer, GNS Science.

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Teachers - how about we host your students on a guided trip to the Bay of Plenty - from the safety of your classroom! Experts will take you to remote locations to help you better understand what causes natural disasters such as tsunami, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and landslides, and how we can manage the risk. This trip fits well with big ideas like hazards, community, our world, nature, self, New Zealand and personal responsibility. This LEARNZ trip is the sixth in a series on geohazards that have included the Auckland volcanic field, Wellington and the Canterbury Earthquakes. Enrol Now.

In preparation for this field trip you will learn about:

• the earth's crust and plate tectonics
• why volcanoes are where they are
• tsunamis, how common they are and what causes them
• New Zealand's vulnerability to landslides
• preparing for natural hazards such as volcanic eruptions and tsunamis
• New Zealand's Earthquake Commission (EQC)
• natural hazard preparedness and emergency plans

During the field trip you will:

• visit Waimangu hot springs to find out why New Zealand has active volcanoes and hydrothermal areas
• see how people can prepare for and react to tsunami
• meet engineers, scientists and people involved in trying to understand natural hazards and how we cope with them
• look back in time at the Buried Village of Te Wairoa to see how the Tarawera eruption affected people and the environment
• discover the impacts of landslides and how these can be reduced
• see how New Zealand's geohazards are detected and monitored

Where you will go

The Bay of Plenty sits near the southern end of the Tonga-Kermadec Trench, one of Earth's deepest oceanic trenches (over 10,000m). The 1,000km trench represents the boundary between the Pacific Plate moving south-west under the Indo-Australian Plate. The line of volcanic activity that parallels the trench includes Raoul Island, White Island, Tarawera and the other central north island volcanoes. The Bay of Plenty region is, not surprisingly one of the most seismically active in New Zealand and a very good place to explore the nature of geohazards! Note: weather and other factors out of our control may influence activities during the field trip.

Learning Areas/Levels

Science: Planet Earth and Beyond Levels 2-8, Nature of Science Levels 2-8, Earth and Space Science Levels 7-8; Social Sciences: Geography Levels 6-8; Social Studies: Place and Environment Levels 2-5

More Curriculum

This field trip has support material for Achievement Standards from Earth and Space Science (ESS) within the Planet Earth and Beyond Strand such as Science 1.16: Investigate an astronomical or Earth science event; ESS 2.3: Investigate geological processes in a New Zealand locality; ESS 2.5: Demonstrate understanding of extreme Earth events; ESS 2.7: Demonstrate understanding of physical principles related to the Earth System; ESS 3.3: Demonstrate understanding of the evidence relating to geological events; Science 3.5: Describe geological processes affecting New Zealand. Geography AS91007 1.1 Demonstrate geographic understanding of environments that have been shaped by extreme natural event(s). AS91012 1.6 Describe aspects of a contemporary New Zealand geographic issue. AS91240 2.1 Demonstrate geographic understanding of a large natural environment. AS91245 2.6 Explain aspects of a contemporary New Zealand geographic issue. AS90701 3.1 Analyse natural processes in the context of a geographic environment. AS90706 3.6 Analyse a contemporary geographic issue and evaluate courses of action. Social Studies AO Level 4 Understand that events have causes and effects. This field trip has material suitable for use with a Social Studies "Disaster" topic.

• Vision, Values, Key Competencies, Principles, Literacy and Numeracy

  By their nature, LEARNZ field trips integrate with the higher levels of the NZ Curriculum. Participation encourages development of the Key Competencies around Thinking, Using language, symbols and text, Managing self, Relating to others, and Participating and contributing. Teachers indicate this in testimonials. LEARNZ field trips have support and activities for Literacy, with opportunities to develop skills in Listening, Reading and Viewing and in Speaking, Writing and Presenting. More about LEARNZ as a Reading Resource and student writing opportunities with LEARNZ. Select LEARNZ field trips have support and activities for Numeracy, encouraging the development of skills in Number and Algebra, in Statistics and in Geometry and Measurement.

• ESOL

  As well as providing visual and audio material and access to real experiences, LEARNZ links well to ESOL Principles, especially Principle 3 Maintain and make explicit the same learning outcomes for all the learners. How can I make the lesson comprehensible to all students? How can I plan the learning tasks so that all the students are actively involved? Do my students understand the learning outcomes? Principle 4 Begin with context embedded tasks which make the abstract concrete. How can I put these concepts into a concrete context?

• What's in a Field Trip

  Every LEARNZ field trip has its own newly-built, self-contained web site ready for integration into your teaching and learning programme. Teacher Support has curriculum integration, resources, newsletters, support and evaluation. Prepare Students provides opportunities for student inquiry on two sets of image-rich background pages at reading levels 2 years apart, (students can click to have those pages read to them out loud), online interactive and other activities to check students' understanding, and a glossary. During the field trip there are live tweets on twitter, and daily additions such as a diary, video clips, profiles of the experts (ideal careers education), a photo gallery, and ambassador (mascot) page updates. Live web conferences via Adobe Connect enable teachers to managed students putting prepared and spontaneous questions to experts (recorded for replay). After the field trip, teachers are encouraged to take further action with their class in the community or to go on a related field trip, or to invite a guest speaker, or to present what they have learned to a wider group. Teachers also fill in an online evaluation (more about reflective practice), the field trip prize winner is drawn, and the final newsletter is sent. Content remains online for continued use.

• How teachers use LEARNZ

  View teacher comments in testimonials and in the LEARNZ Group on the VLN. There are two main ways teachers use a LEARNZ virtual field trip with their class. Firstly, a LEARNZ field trip is ideally an immersive, engaging, synchronous, online learning experience with real-time components and a myriad of opportunities for teachers and students. Secondly, and less ideal but still effective, a LEARNZ field trip can be used as a retrospective experience where the resources such as photos, text, activities, videos and audioconferences/web conferences comprise a unique collection of authentic, contemporary New Zealand teaching and learning material.

• What Now

  Not Registered with LEARNZ? Are you a New Zealand Registered or Provisionally-Registered Teacher? Register free with LEARNZ Now.

  Already Registered with LEARNZ and activated your account? Log in to your personal MyLEARNZ Control Panel and then enrol your classes at no cost in field trips. Note: Enrolment is only needed for the current and future year's field trips.

  Registered but need help? Check your email for activation instructions - contact us if the message did not make it to your email inbox. Log on to MyLEARNZ. Go to Getting Started.

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