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Lesson plan: Exploring a cyclone shelter

From the Dealing with Disasters online resource

Age group: 11 - 14

Aims:
To encourage pupils to consider the ways in which those affected by disasters prepare and cope with the situation.

What to do:
Download and photocopy each of each of the following so that you have enough for each pair of pupils to share one:

• Information on cyclones in Bangladesh

• Worksheet: a cyclone shelter in Bangladesh

• Borhan Uddin's story

• Salema Khatun's story

Give each pair of pupils the 'Information on cyclones in Bangladesh' sheet to read. Ask them to think about what sort of shelter a community would need to protect itself against the effects of a cyclone. Come back together as a group and consider their findings.

Now give pupils the worksheet and ask them to complete it in pairs. What changes would they make to the original ideas for a shelter discussed by the class?

Finally show them the stories of Borhan Uddin and Salema Khatun. Discuss what preparations are made by people in Bangladesh to protect themselves against cyclones.

Further activities

• Design a poster that Borhan Uddin might use to encourage people to use cyclone shelters and tell them what to do to prepare for the storms.

• Ask pupils to imagine that they are in Salema Khatun’s position. A cyclone is on its way and they have only a very short time to prepare to leave their home. They do not know if it will stand up to the storm or not. What would they do to prepare? What would they take with them to the shelter? What would they have to leave behind? How does this feel? This could form the basis for written work in English.

Curriculum links:

From the Dealing with Disasters online resource