Stormy Stories A Reason for the Season Activity Index

<< Fueled by warm waters, Hurricane Pauline veers toward Mexico in October 1997. Photograph courtesy of NOAA

Use your geography savvy to sort out the stories of four kids caught in natural disasters.

Picture this: You're the star reporter at a Web site called Disasterama.com. Each day millions of eager readers hit your site for stories about people who've faced the forces of nature.

Your latest assignment is to give a kid's-eye view of living through a catastrophe. You've just finished four interesting interviews when you have a disaster of your own. For reasons known only to itself, your computer merges and jumbles your files. Result: a mess.

Luckily, you do recall the stars of your stories:

• Susan lives in Kearney, Nebraska.
• Juanita lives in San Pedro, Costa Rica.
• Johnny lives in Discovery Bay, Jamaica.
• Takeshi lives in Tokyo, Japan.

With your sharp eye and mind, you should be able to turn the chaos back into four distinct sets of notes so you can write your article. Of course, it might help to check the disaster dossier to learn about different forces of natures and the places they affect.

All set? Check out the jumbled files and see if you can straighten them out. Use the clues from each interview to figure out what kind of disaster each kid survived. Then, if you're feeling ambitious, you could transform the notes into a news story. Good luck!

Younger Xpeditioners: Hurricanes, volcanoes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods—what force of nature interests you most? Make a diorama of it.

Older Xpeditioners: What forces of nature are likely to strike your community? Work with your parents to plan how your family could respond to a natural disaster.

Parents: Learning about disasters may spark fears in your children. You can probably allay those worries by teaching the family what forces of nature affect your community and by preparing a family response plan. (Your local government and community organizations may offer useful information.) You might even hold a disaster drill to make sure everyone knows what to do.

Next time a disaster hits the headlines, you might work with your children (and others in the community) to raise funds for relief efforts. A few possibilities: bake sale, car wash, yard sale.