Project:

INVITATION

How can we educate students about natural disasters and the threat they pose to the community? How can we help students develop survey techniques that provide the information necessary for critical analysis? How can we provide opportunities for students to collect, to illustrate, and to analyze data that are meaningful to them? How can we help students develop connections between survey techniques, mathematical analysis, and real-world events and opinions?

TASKS

Students research natural disasters and design a survey regarding local attitudes about natural disasters and disaster preparedness in their community. Students pose questions, collect data from the public, graph the data, analyze it, interpret it, and represent their findings in order to show key conclusions and make recommendations for community preparedness. They use Venn diagrams, histograms, and scatter plots, find the mean and median of responses, gather slides of the most interesting results, and create a report which includes five key points supported by data and graphs. The key points are used to make recommendations to the city council to improve disaster preparedness for the community.

TOOLS

Computers; the Internet; Sherlock.

AppleWorks; Tabletop; World Book Encyclopedia.

Clipboards; data sheets; projection system for the computer (optional).

INTERACTIONS

Students work in groups of four to brainstorm and design their survey questions and later to do the initial analysis. In Phase 4, the groups present their findings and recommendations. Students work individually and in pairs to research natural disasters, to collect their data, and to do further detailed analysis. Students work with the librarian or other teachers to distribute their survey questionnaires. They work with the public to collect data.

The teacher presents the project to the entire class and acts as an advisor to groups during the data analysis and recommendation phases. The teacher collaborates with the librarian to gather resources on natural disasters in their area. The teacher also contacts community members to find a speaker versed in natural disaster issues in the community. If possible, the teacher arranges for a knowledgeable community member to speak to the class.

STANDARDS

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SITUATIONS

For the first day of Phase 1 the teacher presents the project and the entire class brainstorms on natural disasters that could affect the local community. Groups of four are then assigned to a type of disaster and spend the next two days researching that type of disaster, sharing their research, and brainstorming questions for the survey. During the next three days of Phase 2, the class designs the final survey and groups set up their data sheets, and collect data around the school, at home, and out in the community. They enter their data into Tabletop. In Phase 3, the groups do a general analysis to become familiar with the data and then pairs spend two to three days analyzing the data in detail and creating a summary report including key graphs, major conclusions, and future recommendations. The pairs return to their groups and spend the last day in a round robin format presenting a summary of their conclusions.

ASSESSMENT

Phases 1 and 2 can be assessed using a checklist that includes items such as participation in discussion, research, data collection, variance of respondents, data entry, and data analysis. In Phase 3, a rubric can be used to assess completeness of the report, mathematical analysis of the data, data representation, strength of the conclusions, and strength and creativity of the recommendations. In Phase 4, the group summary of conclusions can be assessed by peer review using a student-made rubric that includes items such as clarity of the summary, strength of conclusions, and credibility of recommendations.

Floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes: these and other natural disasters strike communities unexpectedly and wreak havoc in their wake. Towns, cities, families, and individuals prepare for the disasters that are likely to strike, yet it is difficult to be totally prepared because there are so many unknowns. What are the disasters that are most likely to afflict your region? How worrisome are these events to community members? How well prepared are the people they will affect?

In this project, students research natural disasters that could affect their area and survey attitudes and preparedness regarding them. After students collect and analyze their data, they will explore and analyze it with a variety of geographical representations, including Venn diagrams, histograms, and scatter plots. They compute means, medians, totals, and percentages and create a summary report that includes a list of conclusions with the supporting data graphs and student recommendations for the community.

Phase 1: Dastardly disasters

Explain to students that they will be creating a survey to find out which kinds of disasters people in their area are most concerned about and how prepared they feel to handle such an emergency. Discuss natural disasters with the class. What kinds of disasters have affected your community during your students' lives? Which of these are of most concern? Which cause the most damage? For which is your community best prepared? What does your community's disaster plan look like and what role does the school play in that plan? Are their ways in which the community has supported preparedness? Are there any political issues in the community around funding for preparedness?

Work with the entire class to list the type of natural disasters that may strike your area. Then break students into groups of four, allowing each group to choose one type of disaster to investigate. Students use World Book Encyclopedia, Sherlock, and the Internet to research information on their type of disaster, finding answers to the following kinds of questions: Where does the disaster usually occur? What are the chances of it occurring in your area? How predictable is it? If it is predictable, how much warning does a community have? What kind of damage does it do? What is the cost of the damage? What kind of preparedness measures are recommended? Groups share their information in a round robin format.

Using the research information on the disasters, make a class list of key issues related to disasters. Students should consider what kind of information a survey could reveal and what questions would lead to conclusions in those areas. Have them consider questions related to both personal preparedness and community preparedness. In groups of four, students should brainstorm survey questions, typing them into AppleWorks to share later. Make sure students consider all forms of questions, including those with Boolean answers (true/false) such as "Are you concerned?"; those which offer a selection between a few choices or categories such as "Which concerns you most: A, B or C"; and those present a rating scale, such as, "On a scale from 1 to 5, how concerned are you?" Note that you can calculate mean and median responses for each question that's based on a rating scale.

Phase 2: Disaster Survey - choosing questions and collecting data

Groups present their proposed survey questions and the class considers which questions will provide the most interesting information. Ask students to imagine that the information they gather will be used to make recommendations to the community on measures to be taken for disaster preparedness. Have students consider what kind of information they would like to get from the survey. What do they want to know about the people taking the survey? Are there privacy issues around what questions can be asked? (See "Technical Tips and Hints.") Would there be a reason to find out the respondents' age? Whether they are male or female? Whether they have children? Whether they own property that could be damaged by a disaster? Are there political issues that hamper preparedness? Ask students to also consider the types of conclusions that could result from the survey. For instance, imagine a town that is somewhat prepared for a tornado, but it is discovered that more people are actually concerned about a flood because the new pump station was not funded in the last election. The issues can become complex and interesting. Work with the entire class to choose the final set of questions for the survey.

If a digital camcorder and iMovie software are available, students can take the camcorder into the community to collect video from the respondents to add to their survey. They can edit this video to create desktop movies which they can add to AppleWorks documents or place on a Web site for viewing by the school, parents, or the community.

Open the Tabletop Disasters Survey database (DisasterSurvey.db) and demonstrate it to the class, looking at the fields and the annotations to the fields. Look at Tabletop Disasters to see some sample plots. Next, open a new database and create a template for the class' survey. Add new fields for the questions the class has decided to collect. Work with the whole class to decide on annotations for the fields with information about why that field was included in the survey.

Have the students return to their groups and give each group a copy of the new database template. Students then plan how they will collect their data to assure that responses are gathered from a cross-section of the community. Students create a response sheet in AppleWorks to collect data that will be entered into the computer later. Have each group go out and collect their data and enter it into their copy of the Tabletop database. With an iBook, students can conduct their survey in a public area and enter the data directly into Tabletop.

Tabletop Survey database

Phase 3: Graphing and analyzing data

Ask groups to do a cursory analysis of the data looking for general patterns and tendencies. They should first look at the notes for each field at the top of the database to be reminded why that field was included. Then they can try some simple sorts and quickly scroll through the data to see if any patterns emerge. Next students click on the Tabletop and create a range of plots, altering the fields represented on each axis and looking for major patterns. A simple way to start is by doing a stack plot on a single field such as "age" so that students can see the range of respondents. Note that each plot has a space for notes right below it. Ask students to comment on each plot they make so they will remember it easily if they go back to it using the History feature.

Have groups split into pairs with each pair analyzing the group database in more detail. Ask pairs to create a range of plots in each of the three ways: Stack plot, Venn Loop plot, and Axes plot. Students annotate each plot in the space provided in Tabletop. Have them find the mean, median, and mode for at least two of their plots and to annotate the way in which these values add to the value of the information of the plot. Using the History bar, students can move the most interesting plots into the slide area so they can review and share them easily. (See "Technical Tips and Hints.")

Phase 4: Reporting results and recommendations

After extensive exploration of the data, students go through their slides and choose the five slides they feel are most informative. Ask students to copy the images into an AppleWorks document, adding further description about why this information would be relevant to their community. Students create a summary document in AppleWorks that includes five such graphs and summary statements. The document should be suitable to inform a city council about attitudes surrounding natural disasters in the community. Finish the report with at least three recommendations that include ways the community or individuals within the community could be better prepared for natural disasters.

Phase 2: When choosing survey questions, privacy issues can arise. In this survey the name of the respondents is not recorded so privacy is less of an issue. However, have students tell all respondents that they can choose not to answer any question they are not comfortable with and that the data is being collected anonymously in order to study the community rather than the individuals.

Tabletop uses the terms Venn Loop plot, Stack plot, and Axes plot. Make sure students are familiar with each of these and know how each is referred to in other math materials found in the school.

The sample Disasters Survey database (DisasterSurvey.db) has only a few questions but can be used to show students key ways to look at data. It can also show the value of different kinds of data including Boolean (T/F), category (A, B or C), and range (1-5). Also look at the Tabletop Disasters database to see some sample plots with annotation.

The Disasters Survey database includes custom icons for the respondents according to their age. This way it is easy to tell the difference between the children, teens, and adults as well as male and female. Students may want to customize the people icons to show age, or any other attribute, as a way to help them spot patterns more quickly. (See page 37 of the Tabletop User's Manual for information on creating custom icons.)

The Questionnaire item in the Database menu in Tabletop automatically generates an onscreen form to fill out information for the survey. Students collecting data on an iBook should use this form.

Phase 3: Be sure to have students choose "Plot recorder" from the Tabletop menu. This will bring up the History bar to the right of their plots, enabling them to get back to any previous plot. To add any plot to the slideshow click the Slides box just under the History bar. Ask students to annotate any plots, which lead them to questions or conclusions. Note that History and Slides can be erased by choosing Clear History and Clear Slides from the Tabletop menu.

Phase 4: Each group presents a summary of the information found by the two pairs using the same database. This can be done easily by having the group choose a few of the most important points and showing the slides for those on the computer while using the summary reports to explain the importance of their conclusions. A few recommendations should be given as part of the presentation as well.

PREPARATION

Review the "Quick Reference" section in the Tabletop User's Manual (page 7).

Discuss with the class the collection of data and the analyzing of information. If the students have not worked with Tabletop, demonstrate it using the sample Cat Database. Explore a range of Venn Loop plots, Stack plots, and Axes plots.

Open the sample database DisasterSurvey.db to become familiar with a simple version of a disaster survey database. Open the Tabletop Disasters database to see some sample plots.

Talk with the librarian about resources related to natural disasters that have occurred in your area.

If possible, invite a knowledgeable person from the community to talk with the class about potential natural disasters, their consequences for the community, the current state of preparedness, and what students can do to contribute to preparedness or to disaster relief in the future. This person could also help students focus their investigation on needed information that the community would like to have.

OPTIONS AND EXTENSION ACTIVITIES

Consider giving this project an "imaginative frame," such as that of a city commissioner charged with preparing a report on emergency preparedness and the areas to which public awareness campaigns should be addressed.

Survey questions will vary from region to region. In Phase 3, identify specific areas of inquiry and questioning strategies, as appropriate. You will also want to determine a minimum number of survey responses depending on the size and nature of your community and school.

Post the survey on your school's Internet site and ask parents with Internet access to fill it out there. Create an email version of the survey and send it to friends or newsgroups.

If you live in an area that is routinely ravaged by weather-related disasters, encourage students to participate in relief programs by collecting items for donation and volunteering time.

At the end of the project, have some students combine the class' databases and have students look for unnoticed patterns in the larger data sample. This data could be the basis for an impressive letter to the city council with recommendations for disaster preparedness.

Using Apple Learning Interchange, find another class in a different part of the country with whom you can share and compare your data. Exchange stories and insights with this other group.

THE HOME-SCHOOL CONNECTION

In addition to their survey-taking, encourage students to discuss disaster safety at home. Does their family have a fire safety route mapped out? Do family members know how to contact one another in the case of a disaster? Are emergency supplies available such as canned food, candles, blankets, and bottled water? Ask students to visit the fire department and police station to find out what their recommendations are for disaster preparedness. Have them find out what the local Red Cross chapter is recommending as well.