Quickly gain insight and clarity with this ready-to-go course that makes teaching earthquakes powerful, engaging and unforgettable!
FOR TEACHERS OF MIDDLE TO HIGH SCHOOL
JUST LAUNCHED!
You want to teach about earthquakes but you're not sure how to explain the science clearly
You don’t have time to research or design hands-on activities
You worry about giving students the wrong idea or missing important concepts
You wish you had all the curated resources needed but lack time to gather and organise them
You want to offer some challenging inquiry options for your students
You had a simple, ready-to-use teaching module that made lesson planning a breeze
You could explain complex earthquake concepts with confidence and clarity
Your students were jolted to attention and eager to learn more!
You had plenty of hands-on activities to bring earthquakes to life
You had access to great ideas and materials that have been tried and tested in the classroom
I’m a geoscience communicator, educator, and former high school teacher living in Aotearoa New Zealand. And since 2008, I’ve helped thousands of teachers bring earth science alive in the classroom.
I’ve worked with schools, science organisations, and researchers across NZ and internationally, not only helping scientists in the field, but then designing educational workshops, field trips, and student experiences that spark fascination and understanding. I’ve also won national awards for science communication and education.
This course brings together the best of what I’ve learned — so you can confidently teach one of the most important topics in earth science: earthquakes.
Teaching about earthquakes can feel daunting. The science is complex. The risks are real. And the curriculum isn’t always clear about what to prioritise. If you get it wrong it can be hard to correct false ideas or information that you may have unintentionally promoted.
You want to do it right — but time is short, and support is limited. That’s where this course comes in.
I’ll walk you through my simple, proven framework for teaching earthquakes with impact. You’ll get clear explanations, practical lesson ideas, classroom-ready activities, downloadable resources, and links to awesome videos and visuals. You’ll also get ideas for using simple materials to teach about seismic activity in a way that’s relevant and memorable.
Pick out the elements you want or use them all. Either way your students are going to be fully engaged.
This course gives you everything you need to teach about earthquakes with confidence:
How to explain key earthquake concepts in clear, student-friendly language
How to link earthquakes to plate tectonics, landscapes and erosion with real-world examples
Hands-on activities to explore seismic waves, fault lines, and earthquake impacts
How to teach about earthquake safety and preparedness the right way
Tips for integrating science, literacy, and social studies around the topic of earthquakes
Lucy Hill, Teacher
What a fantastic course!
It was incredibly helpful, and gave me practical ideas that I can use in my classroom next term.
Doing the course is incredibly straight forward and user friendly.
The practical ideas, specially the aftershocks experiment with the wood is so very simple and achievable to do in a classroom and I never would have thought of it!
Thank you for taking the time to create such a fantastic resource!
Janelle Bennett, Auckland
An outstanding earthquake resource for all teachers. Whether you're new to teaching earthquakes or would like to shake up your unit, this resource contains high quality information, images and activities. Highly recommended!
Erin McAllum, Whakatane
I would highly recommend this course to anyone teaching earth science across junior and senior secondary schools, it provides in-depth current scientific explanations of how and why earthquakes occur applied to recent local examples, with excellent visual images for students to discuss, and a range of supporting practicals for students to visualize and experiment with the underlying physical phenomena. It's everything you need for teaching earthquakes in New Zealand!
You've got questions. Here's some answers:
This course is for Middle or High School teachers who want help to make an earthquake module that is easy to prepare, has enough but not too much background info, has a lot of ideas for inquiry, powerful and relevant images and ideas for hands on activities.
Adaptability is the key. With this course you will be able to pick and choose as many or as few of the elements that you want to teach.
You will be able to absorb the content in an hour or two and can then explore some of the information further if you wish.
There are also some simple ideas for practical activities that will require a bit of time to sort out using some easily acquired material.
Sure! I will take you through a framework for teaching about earthquakes and you can then apply it using the same prepared images and activities that I will share with you.
If you start to work through this course one weekend you will be able to apply the content on Monday morning! It is always to be recommended to give yourself a bit more time if possible though!
You will have access to the complete slide deck in pptx format for you to adapt or use directly in your lessons.
You will also have a curated selection of links to the most useful videos and other content for explaining earthquake related concepts.
You will have lifetime access, including to all future upgrades of the course
Background information to help your own understanding of earthquakes in a framework that you can then apply in your lessons
Images and slide packs that explain the relationship between tectonic plates, faults and earthquakes
Explanations of all sorts of earthquake features seen in the Canterbury and Kaikōura quakes
How to motivate your students about earthquake and tsunami preparedness
Lifetime access to all future upgrades
Lots of practical ideas for group challenges, demos and hands-on activities.