NATURAL HAZARDS
A naturally occurring event that can harm people, buildings, or the environment.
What is a natural hazard?
This natural hazard causes the ground to shake.
What is an earthquake?
This natural hazard occurs when water covers land that is normally dry.
What is a flood?
A design or structure created to help reduce damage from a natural hazard.
What is an engineering solution?
Something an engineering design does well.
What is a strength?
The first step engineers take when deciding how to solve a problem.
What is identifying the problem?
This powerful rotating column of air can damage buildings and uproot trees.
What is a tornado?
This is the name for the shaking motion that earthquake-resistant buildings must withstand.
What is ground motion (or ground shaking)?
These temporary barriers are made by stacking bags filled with sand to help hold back floodwater.
What are sandbags?
This earthquake-resistant technique uses a wider bottom to help reduce tipping.
What is a wide, stable base?
A weakness or restriction that prevents a solution from working perfectly.
What is a limitation?
A drawing that shows how a structure will be built before construction begins.
What is a blueprint (or design plan)?
This natural hazard happens when rock, soil, and debris move downhill
What is a landslide?
These diagonal supports form strong shapes that help a building resist sideways movement.
What is triangular bracing?
This engineering solution moves water through a channel to help redirect it away from buildings.
What is a canal (or drainage channel)?
This type of shelter provides a safer place for people during a tornado.
What is a tornado shelter (or storm shelter)?
A wide base makes a building less likely to tip, but its upper floors can still bend. The possibility of upper-floor bending is this.
What is a limitation?
This is what engineers do to a model to find out how well it works.
What is testing?
This natural hazard occurs when molten rock, ash, and gases escape from Earth's surface.
What is a volcanic eruption?
This engineering technique strengthens the places where beams, columns, and floors meet.
What is reinforced connections (or reinforcement)?
This solution protects a home by raising it above the level floodwater may reach.
What is an elevated house?
Engineers may use levees or floodwalls to help protect a community from this natural hazard.
What is flooding?
This is one limitation of using extra supports and reinforcement in a building.
What is needing more materials (or added cost)?
Engineers should keep the shaking time and intensity the same when comparing different buildings for this reason.
What is to make the test fair?
Heavy rainfall can trigger this hazard on a steep hillside when soil becomes saturated.
What is a landslide?
During a shake test, one building sways while another tips over. This observation is an example of information engineers use to compare designs.
What is evidence (or test data)?
A flood barrier keeps water out at first, but water eventually flows over the top. This is a limitation of the design.
What is the barrier being too low (or water exceeding the barrier's height)?
A community near a river chooses between a floodwall and raising homes. This is the main purpose shared by both solutions.
What is reducing flood damage?
A sandbag wall stops shallow water but fails during a larger flood. This shows why engineers must consider this when choosing a solution.
What are the solution's limitations (or the size and severity of the hazard)?
After a model fails, engineers use observations to make changes. This step of the engineering process is called this.
What is improving (or redesigning) the solution?
A town experiences both flooding and landslides after several days of rain. This explains how the two hazards can be related.
What is heavy rainfall saturating the ground, causing both rising water and unstable slopes?
All three buildings survived the shake test. This is why engineers cannot automatically conclude that all three designs are equally effective.
What is the test did not show a clear difference in performance (or the evidence is insufficient to rank them)?
Two flood models are tested with different amounts of water. This is why engineers cannot fairly compare their performance.
What is the amount of water was not controlled (or the test was not fair)?
An engineer chooses triangular bracing for a building instead of a flood barrier. This explains why the choice makes sense for an earthquake.
What is bracing helps resist sideways shaking, while a flood barrier is designed to block water?
A model building survives earthquake shaking but breaks when struck by a bat. This is the conclusion best supported by the two tests.
What is a design can resist one type of force but still be damaged by another (or surviving one hazard does not guarantee survival of all hazards)?
A team claims its building is the strongest because it used the most glue, even though all buildings survived. This is what the team needs before making that conclusion.
What is evidence from a fair comparison showing its design performs better?