Tsunamis Worksheets

What This Lesson Teaches

Students read a multi-page passage about tsunamis. The lesson opens with the word itself – tsunami, pronounced soo-nam-me, a Japanese word meaning harbor wave – and explains how an underwater earthquake or erupting volcano can move enough ocean water to produce massive waves.

A second section walks through three real tsunamis: 1946 Hilo, Hawaii (waves of 20 to 32 feet, downtown Hilo flooded), 1964 West Coast (triggered by an Alaskan earthquake, hit California, Oregon, and Washington with waves of 10 to 20 feet), and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (a 9.3 magnitude earthquake off Sumatra, the second-largest earthquake ever recorded, with as many as 229,886 casualties from Sumatra all the way to South Africa).

What Students Practice

• Reading informational text across multiple sections
• Earth-science vocabulary – tsunami, harbor wave, magnitude, aftershock, casualty, shoreline
• Reading historical event summaries – date, location, wave height, damage, casualty count
• Connecting causes to effects – underwater earthquakes produce tsunamis; the bigger the quake, the bigger the wave
• Reading large numbers in context – magnitude 9.3, 229,886 casualties, 5,000 miles of impact
• Comprehension questions that require returning to the passage to find specific facts

How Teachers Use This Worksheet

This is the deepest lesson in the natural-disasters reading set. Because the 2004 tsunami is recent enough to have photographic and news coverage, the lesson lends itself well to multimedia extension.

• Use as a Day 4 reading in a natural-disasters mini-unit, after earthquakes (which cause tsunamis)
• Pair with a world map – have students locate Hilo, the U.S. West Coast, Sumatra, and the path of the 2004 wave to South Africa
• Cross-reference the 2004 magnitude (9.3) with the Richter Scale chart from the Earthquake Worksheets
• Use as a current-events anchor when a coastal earthquake is in the news
• Tie to discussions about early-warning systems and evacuation planning
• Use the comprehension questions as a written response or whole-class discussion

Common Student Mistakes to Watch For

• Pronouncing tsunami with the t – the lesson explicitly teaches the soo-nam-me pronunciation
• Thinking tsunamis are just big regular waves – emphasize that they are caused by undersea earth movement, not wind
• Confusing the earthquake magnitude with the tsunami size – they are related but separate measurements
• Missing the geographic spread of the 2004 tsunami – 5,000 miles is the distance students should anchor on
• Skimming past the casualty number – 229,886 deserves a moment of pause and discussion

Download the Worksheet

Full Members can download the printable PDF worksheet and answer key.

Related Resources

• Tsunamis Reading Comprehension Lesson – the full lesson page
• Earthquake Worksheets – underwater earthquakes cause most tsunamis
• Hurricane Worksheets
• Tornado Worksheets
• Blizzards Worksheets

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