Activities for "The Big Wave" by Pearl S. Buck Katy Smith teacher atPratt Elementary School in Pratt, West Virginia USA suggests activities to go along with Pearl Buck's "The Big Wave."
Her review of the story is:
This short story tells about a Japanese village that is destroyed by a tidal wave. Everyone tried to reach the safety of the mountains before the big wave struck. However, a small boy who had gone to the mountains with friends of the family is orphaned because his parents were drowned. The boy, lonely, grieving, and confused, is welcomed into the family who had taken him to the mountains.
Article on Elephants and the Tsunami Elephants saved tourists from tsunami
Posted online: Sunday, January 02, 2005 at 1513 hours IST
Thailand, January 2: Agitated elephants felt the tsunami coming, and
their sensitivity saved about a dozen foreign tourists from the fate
of thousands killed by the giant waves.
"I was surprised because the elephants had never cried before,"
mahout Dang Salangam said on Sunday on Khao Lak beach at the
eight-elephant business offering rides to tourists.
The elephants started trumpeting -- in a way Dang, 36, and his wife
Kulada, 24, said could only be described as crying -- at first light,
about the time an earthquake measured at a magnitude of 9.0 cracked
open the sea bed off Indonesia's Sumatra island.
The elephants soon calmed down. But they started wailing again about
an hour later and this time they could not be comforted despite their
mahouts' attempts at reassurance.
Charter School of Morgan Hill's (CA) 5th Grade Tsunami Relief Project The two 5th grade classes at the Charter School of Morgan Hill (CA) raised $1500 for Tsunami Relief. They dontate this money to Free the Children for Tsunami Relief in the affected areas because the money would be used to help the children. As part of their tsunami study, they read Pearl Buck's "The Big Wave." These photos are the children's interpretations of that story.
Digital Globe's Tsunami Information DigitalGlobe's Quickbird satellite captured an image of the
devestation around Kalutara, Sri Lanka (top), on December 26, 2004,
at 10:20 a.m. local time-about an hour after the first in the series
of waves hit. A Quickbird image taken on January 1, 2004 (lower),
shows the normal ocean conditions. Water is flowing out of the
inundated area and back into the sea, creating turbulence offshore.
Some near-shore streets and yards are covered with muddy water. It is
possible that the image was acquired in a "trough" between wave
crests. Imagery of nearby beaches shows that the edge of the ocean
had receded about 150 meters from the shoreline.
Free the Children Free the Children is an outstanding organization. The founder (now a young man) was only 12 years old when he founded the organization. It is an international network of children helping children.
Ham Radio Helps Tsunami Relief When tsunami waves broke all communication lines across India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, ham radio came to the rescue.
Bharati Prasad, India's foremost amateur ham radio operator, was attempting a new transmission record here when the Dec 26 earthquake followed by the giant waves hit the archipelago.
Faced with a massive humanitarian crisis - with hundreds dying and islands with thousands of people completely out of reach - Prasad quit her project and jumped into action.
"In situations like this, the only thing that works is radio," said Prasad, one of the 20,000 Indian ham radio operators - people who run powerful radio transmission sets connecting with fellow enthusiasts across the world.
"The phone links had disappeared, so I started using my radio set to connect with people in mainland (India) and giving information about people in Port Blair."In fact, I was one of the first people to get in touch with a radio guy in Thailand who told me what was happening there barely minutes after the waves hit (the beach town of) Phuket."
Healing Arts for Tsunami Survivors THIRTY-FOUR ART THERAPISTS TO WORK WITH TSUNAMI CHILDREN
Art therapists and trauma experts from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Iceland, and other nations head to South and South East Asia this summer to volunteer for ICAF's Healing Arts for Tsunami Survivors program. This site shows how you can support this program.
Help Provide Assistance to Tsunami Victims With hundreds of thousands of people displaced by
floods in ten countries from Southeast Asia to the
Horn of Africa, more contributions are needed.
Help OneWorld partners in the U.S. provide
short-term emergency assistance, such as water,
food, blankets and personal hygiene kits, and
long-term aid to help with reconstruction efforts.
Heritage Cookbook Fundraising Site This is a web site where groups can build cookbooks online with
pictures, stories and recipes. The
cookbooks are printed in B&W or color in Toronto and shipped anywhere.
There is a note on the home page of the site saying that this organization wants to help anyone raising money for the disaster by providing free access to the site and by getting the printer to print the books at cost. Also all orders will be treated as rush orders so that they can be shipped
quickly. You can reach the author of the site (Susan Love ) at 917-815-2866 or via
email at firstname.lastname@example.org.
iEarn Tsunami Relief Efforts "Many people in iEARN have asked what they can to do to help people affected by the earthquake and tsunami that devastated communities in a number of south and southeast Asia.
There are many international relief agencies working daily to provide food, clothing, shelter, water and health care to people in need. Please participate in these efforts/organizations.
In addition, we created a bank account for funds collected for earthquake relief following the disaster in Bam, Iran last year. If you and your schools would like to send funds from around the world for distribution and use in the affected countries, please use this account. iEARN will create an international Committee to work with the iEARN Coordinators in the affected countries to oversee distribution of the funds and to report back to the international community where the funds were distributed and used. Our focus will be on education and the needs of children. We will consult with the iEARN people in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and elsewhere to use your donated funds to assist in the re-establishment of education opportunities and in the re-building of lives of children affected by this calamity. As we work with iEARN people in these countries, we will keep you informed of plans and developments."
Kinja Kinja.com is a digest of the latest news feeds and first-person blogs related
to the tsunami disaster.
You could use this site for current events to teach about the tsunami and the relief effort. If you have a news feed or blog that's focusing on the tsunami, or are
reading one that you'd like to add to the digest, go to the above URL
and log on with the following info:
Once you've logged in, you can add a news source to the digest by
pasting it into the "Add a Favorite" form field in the right column. Or,
you can go here:
Pearl Buck's "The Big Wave" Real Audio on NPR NPR's Jacki Lyden reads from Nobel prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck's children's book The Big Wave -- a story of a tsunami and its aftermath, set in Japan. The download is a bit slow, but The story is excellent. The book is a "good read" to help students understand the effect of tsunamis on people, and the determination of people affected by disasters to rebuild their lives.
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog "As the focus on South Asia transitions from relief to reconstruction, those wishing to support these efforts are looking for safe channels to send financial support. One organization, GlobalGiving has tapped into its existing network of grassroots level projects in South Asia to identify long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.
All of the projects are mission focused and specifc in their goals and expected outcomes. This seems like a great way to be a part of the rebuilding process, especially if you can't make the trip to South Asia yourself."
Tsunami disaster on the
UN's News Centre
UN's News Centre UN RESPONDS TO TSUNAMI DISASTER
The effects of the tragedy have largely faded...from the front pages and from our nightly news. So it's vitally important that we have someone capable of sustaining international interest in the fate of the survivors and their communities.
Kofi Annan at joint news conference with
former US President Bill Clinton
Tsunami Holocaust in Kerala: Relief Fund "The coastal belt of Kerala was ravaged by Tsunami, killing at least 169 persons. The most ruined is the poor hamlet of Azheekkal near Karunagappally in Kollam District. Thousands displaced. Thousands injured. Thousands rendered homeless. Now the damage is beyond any assessment. Government machinery, self help groups, political parties, organization etc. are pouring in as much help for relief operations.
Financial help is sought from the people world over to render all care for the people in distress. Every Indian rupee you donate will go to a meaningful end to make the poor survive. "
Tsunami.com ELRO Corporation and Tsunami Computing Inc. are conducting a charity drive to help tsunami victims. 100% of the funds received will be sent to charities directly involved in humanitarian help and rescue efforts in Asia. This site also links to Tsunami images and information.
UNICEF's Tsunami Relief Site UNICEF country offices in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka are supporting relief and recovery efforts following the Sumatra earthquake that touched off a series of tsunamis, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving hundreds of thousands of children and their families in serious jeopardy. At least a third of those reported dead and missing are children, UNICEF believes.