National Geographic Explores ‘Forces of Nature’ on the Net
With Florida facing one of its worst hurricane seasons ever, the National Geographic Forces of Nature
Web site (www.nationalgeographic.com/forcesofnature) is an ideal online tool for discussing natural disasters in the classroom. This new site educates visitors on how natural disasters happen, while allowing students to create and control their own storms, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Students can study storms such as hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones by viewing maps of where these disasters naturally occur, finding out how scientists are working to predict them, and reading case studies about some of history’s most destructive hurricanes. Forces of Nature also discusses the Earth’s 1,900 volcan'es by teaching how they form, where they occur and how they erupt. Finally, the site delves into the topics of earthquakes and tornad'es by exploring the different scales used to measure the strengths of disasters, and examining maps that illustrate where these disasters most commonly occur.
This article originally appeared in the 10/01/2004 issue of THE Journal.