Tornado!
Figure 1. A severe tornado in Texas in 1995.Copyright http://www.photolib. noaa.gov/collections.html
Students learn about tornadoes - their basic characteristics, damage and occurrence. Students are introduced to the ways that engineers consider strong winds, specifically tornadoes, in their design of structures. Also, students learn how tornadoes are rated, and learn some basics of tornado safety.
Understanding the science of natural phenomena enables engineers to design and build strong structures to withstand natural disasters such as tornadoes. By combining their expertise in inventing measurement and data gathering tools with their ability to analyze and learn from past failures, engineers continue to improve structural designs, advance warning systems and emergency procedures for human safety. This same process of gathering and analyzing data to better understand problems and formulate solutions is used in all engineering disciplines.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Understand how engineers design and build structures to withstand tornado damage.
- Describe tornadoes, how they are measured and how they are formed.
- Understand how the wind and tornadoes affects humans.
- Describe some basics of tornado safety.