Of Sushi and Schoolwork

When the tsunami first hit, one of the kids came up to one of the volunteers, Mark, and started talking excitedly about it and about the session on plate tectonics we'd done last year.

The boy, 11, was football crazy and usually took us a lot of effort to sit still and pay attention. We certainly didn't expect him to come talk to us proactively about Japan and the earthquake. 

So, we decided to plan a couple of lessons around the theme of earthquakes. Last weekend, a group of volunteers who specialize in conflict resolution used the events in Japan in a role play.

The kids had to pretend they were injured the tsunami and had to argue for which of them should be sent to hospital first. Another kid was the "doctor"and had to decide who got priority and why.