Y9 Natural Disasters Assessment

Teachers: Mrs Ballin, Mr Santella & Mr Wong

Date: 18 April 2016 3 May 2016 (2 weeks/6 lessons according to your classes)

Student Instructions
Statement of Inquiry: Geographic location and development create opportunities and
constraints in dealing with natural disasters
Assessment: Answer a research question in your own chosen format

You are to create your own research question linked to the topic. You must then
effectively plan, research, analyse and evaluate sources to answer that question in a
format of your choice!
Writing Questions
The inquiry/ research question should be a question about the topic and something you
would like to further investigate. When defining a clear and focused research question
the following elements can be considered: relevance, manageability, originality, ability to
be assessed, of interest to the student and based in the subject.
Think about the clarity and focus of your research question.
How easy or difficult is it to find information?
Are there a good range of sources that you can refer to?
Are the sources recent or dated?
Could you answer your question in an essay of 2 pages?
Could you find a definitive answer to your question?
If you were rewriting your question, what would you change?
Is your question related to the unit topic?

Your question could use the following command terms, topics and things to compare/consider;
Starting words

Content to assess

What to assess

Identify

Earthquakes

The most important reason

-Japan

Least important reason

Explain why

-Philippines

Primary reason

Analyse why

-China
Success
Hurricanes

Failure

-Katrina

To what extent

effect of technology

How far
How accurate is it to say

Volcanoes

Compare

Pinatubo

causes of

St Helens

consequences of

Iceland

Impacts upon
Importance of

Tornados/Tsunamis etc
Human reactions
n.b - only use disasters from

Government reactions

the past 100 years

International reactions
Reasons for living near disasters

N.B - Keep questions as specific as you can. A question like How do humans react to earthquakes?
cant really be answered as it is too broad.

Check your question

Is there more than one answer to your question?
Are there different perspectives and ideas that arise from your question?
Is it specific, but with enough scope to find lots of information?
Does it contain a specific timeframe?
Does it have an area of major focus?

The documents you need to submit:

1. Your planning. (Lesson 1)
-Plan of action
2. Your research (Lesson 2 & 3)
- A research question with a detailed explanation of why you have chosen it
- A research folder containing all of your findings and evidence collected
- Cited references to academic texts (NOTE - you should use a variety of reliable
sources- this means images, text, documentary evidence, graphs, etc)
3. Your final product. (Lesson 4,5 & 6)
-This can be whatever format you choose. However, any performance/recording should
last a maximum of 3 minutes. Any written piece should only have a maximum of 1000
words.
This will be assessed using Criteria A (Knowledge and Understanding) and Criteria B
(Investigation)
Click here for Rubric documents
A level 8 project for Criteria A (Knowledge and Understanding) will;
-Use a wide range of key terms from the unit. This means that specific terminology for your
natural disaster will be in evidence (you cant talk about Earthquakes without mentioning
tectonic plates or divergent/convergent boundaries for example).
-Uses technical language appropriately
-Show detailed knowledge about the specific natural disaster you are looking at from clear
research. This should come from statistics, personal accounts, graphs/maps/tables, reports,
articles, books, etc.
-Examples should be clearly used. Explanations and analysis should use these examples to
show why something is important or significant.
A level 8 project for Criteria B (Investigation) will;
1-Have a clear and focused research question and justify it.
2-Include a detailed plan of action that is clearly followed and adhered to.
3- Effectively answer the research question
4- Show evidence of using methods accurately and effectively to collect information in line
with the research question (mind maps/highlighted articles/notes taken)

Action plan (See more detailed plan format from lesson 1)

Before making your action plan, break your question/task into stages.

Think about what you may need to do at each stage?

How long will it take?

Now complete the first 2 columns of this table

Date to
complete

Description of task (Action

plan)

How will this be achieved? Was this achieved?

What could have been
better?