March 1-7, 2012, Current Events Lesson Plan
Current event:
Deadly storms recently blew across the midwest and southern United States, spawning dozens of tornadoes that left at least 39 people dead amid the rubble of destroyed buildings and overturned vehicles. The storms touched down in at least a dozen states and caused the governors of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio to declare states of emergency.
Objective:
Tornadoes produce the strongest winds on Earth and can destroy almost anything in their path. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles takes a look at the mechanics behind this powerful storm.
Vocabulary Terms:
Discussion Topics:
1. Scientists use the word cyclone to refer to all spiral-shaped windstorms. Cyclones circulate in a counterclockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere and in a clockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere. Cyclones fall into two basic categories, tornadoes and tropical cyclones (also called hurricanes or typhoons). Ask your students if they know the difference between these two storms.
2. A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air known as a vortex that has reached the ground. It is often associated with a funnel cloud, a funnel-shaped cloud that may appear near the ground in a thunderstorm. Ask your students what else they know about tornadoes.
- Tornadoes can form in many places on Earth, however by far the greatest number appears in the United States. Australia is a distant second in the number of tornadoes.
- Tornadoes can produce winds in excess of 300 miles (480 kilometers) per hour.
- Tornadoes can be as small as a few feet (meters) wide to over a mile (1.6 kilometers) wide.
- Tornadoes usually last a few minutes and travel several miles (kilometers), but some have been known to last for tens of minutes and cover many miles.
- Tornadoes over water are called waterspouts. They are usually small and weak.
3. The largest and longest lasting cyclones are tropical cyclones, which may reach 250 miles (400 kilometers) across and continue for several days.
- Tropical cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons are the same type of storm.
- Commonly speaking, hurricanes occur in the Atlantic Ocean, typhoons in the Pacific Ocean, and tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean. However, the more formal usage states that hurricanes and typhoons are both a type of storm called a tropical cyclone.
- Tropical cyclones begin over a warm sea, can move for hundreds of miles, and can cause great damage through fierce winds, torrential rain, flooding, and huge waves crashing ashore.
4. The United States has more tornadoes than any other country. Most of these storms occur in a belt known as Tornado Alley. It stretches across the Midwestern, Plains, and Southern states, especially Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Give your students blank maps of the United States and color in the area known as Tornado Alley. Talk about the states that occupy that area.