Tsunami and Seismic Sea Waves

Have you ever seen a public service announcement when watching TV, or heard one on the radio? Public service announcements (or PSAs) are advertisements used by the government and non-profit organizations to raise awareness of an issue, or encourage people to take action to make an improvement in their community. An effective PSA is one that appeals to a target audience, informs the listener, and provides a call to action. You may have heard public-service announcements on the benefits of quitting smoking, eating healthfully, exercising, or recycling.

Now that you know the characteristics of tsunami and the devastation that they can bring, pretend that you have been selected to create a public-service announcement to help educate people living in coastal areas about the characteristics and warning signs of tsunami, and what they should do if one approaches. Your one to two minute audio PSA should provide specific characteristics of tsunami, how to determine if one is approaching, and what people should do to keep themselves safe. For this assignment, you should use audio recording software provided to you by your school or free audio recording software available online, such as Audacity.

Before you begin, review the Tsunami PSA Rubric so that you understand how your assignment will be graded. Also, please take a few minutes to view the examples of public service announcements provided below. You may need to use resources outside of this course to complete this assignment. If so, please submit a Works Cited document. If you need assistance, visit the Developmental Module for information on citing any resources that you used.

Once you have completed your podcast, please submit the audio file and a transcript to the dropbox.