The Cherry Blossom Front: teacher key

Japan, grade 8 edition, written for 8th grade. Follow spring up the islands, ride out an earthquake, and see how a nation of steep land and crowded cities works. A tour of Japan through its numbers.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Why do places farther from an earthquake's start get more warning time?
   • The waves stop
   • The P-wave arrives well before the stronger S-wave (answer)
   • The sea floor is deeper
2. What happens to tsunami waves as the sea gets shallower?
   • They spread out and shrink
   • They turn into rain
   • They slow down and the tsunami grows higher (answer)
3. What does the cherry blossom front do?
   • It starts in the south in late March and moves northward (answer)
   • It starts in the north and moves south
   • It stays in Tokyo
4. What does the word sushi join together?
   • The words for fish and sea
   • The words for raw and cooked
   • The words for vinegar and rice (answer)
5. What does the word magnitude refer to here?
   • How tall a wave is
   • How much energy an earthquake releases (answer)
   • How long rain lasts

Words

• monsoon: seasonal rain wind
• typhoons: big storms
• tsunami: giant sea wave
• magnitude: quake size
• marshland: wet ground