Earthquakes – Edexcel IAL Geography

A fully editable, ready-to-teach lesson on Earthquakes for Edexcel International A Level (IAL) Geography, Unit 1: Global Challenges – World at Risk.

Lesson aim: To explain the causes, measurement and hazards of earthquakes.

Learning outcomes

• To explain why earthquakes happen
• To understand how earthquakes are measured, including the moment magnitude scale
• To identify the primary and secondary hazards of earthquakes

Specification: Global hazards — key idea 1 (earthquakes)

What’s included

• Editable PowerPoint lesson (15 slides)
• Word worksheet: Read the case study
• Teacher notes and suggested answers in the speaker notes

Lesson overview

• Starter: Every dot is an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 or more, 1965–2016.
• What causes an earthquake?
• Seismic waves
• Measuring earthquakes
• How much more energy?
• Primary and secondary hazards
• Liquefaction
• Are large earthquakes becoming more frequent?
• The deadliest earthquakes since 2000
• Why do impacts vary?
• Turkey–Syria 2023
• Homework task
• Exam practice: Assess the relative importance of physical and human factors in explaining the impacts of earthquakes. (8)

This lesson is part of my complete Edexcel IAL Geography World at Risk unit, which is also available in my shop if you would like every lesson in the topic.

Want a free sample? Visit The Geography Teacher website.