On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti. January 1 is also Haiti's Independence Day, so January is a good time to help students learn about Haitian culture with this activity for the CultureGrams Kids Edition.
Grades K-5 Learning Activity
Have students read the Kids Edition report for Haiti and create a list of five characteristics of Haitians. Discuss their findings as a class to create a list of Haitian characteristics.
Then have students access the Haiti Photo Gallery, which portrays the everyday lives of Haitians. Have each student pick a photo and write a short paragraph about the person pictured, describing what the person is doing and imagining what the person's life is like. They can use their list of five characteristics as ideas. Have the students compare their descriptions.
Discuss the 2010 earthquake in Haiti with the students. Ask them how the earthquake affected the lives of the Haitians they wrote about.
What changes would the earthquake have made to the descriptions they wrote? Discuss the ongoing humanitarian efforts in Haiti, and have the students make a list of things they could do to help.
Find out more about Haiti and Chile, both of which suffered massive earthquakes in 2010, in our special report from February 2010.
This report includes direct links to our full 2010 country reports for both Haiti and Chile (PDF's).
