The Great San Francisco Earthquake & Fires of 1906

1906 Earthquake & Fires of San Francisco

San Francisco Call building gutted by fire

In this WebQuest, students will imagine that they are news reporters covering the Great 1906 Earthquake & Fires of San Francisco. This is designed as a cross-curricular activity for Secondary-level students incorporating both U.S. History and English Language Arts.

Introduction

In this WebQuest, you will work with two other students to create a feature article for a special edition newspaper on the one-year anniversary of the April 18, 1906 earthquake that discusses various aspects of the devastation and tragedy. The finished feature article will include specific elements assigned by the teacher with contributions by each team member and will be shared with the class after it has “gone to press.”

Using what you have learned in class along with resource contributions from The Great 1906 Earthquake & Fires of San Francisco, you will use this project to explore the effects that this singular event had on U.S. history.

Get ready to dive into history by putting on your newscap, setting the time-machine back over a hundred years, and learning firsthand what it was like to experience one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history!

Task

In this WebQuest, you will take on the identity of a newspaper reporter creating a special one-year anniversary issue focusing on various aspects of the Great 1906 Earthquake & Fire of San Francisco. In order to create a feature article for our newspaper, you and your fellow newspaper reporters will need to be familiar with the destructive event itself and some of the social and industrial aspects that were involved.

Once you have learned about the event and gathered your sources to be used in your feature article, you will work with your team to create the final edition, complete with appropriate images. Once all teams have readied their final editions, we will combine the feature articles into a single newspaper to be published. Be prepared to discuss the choices your team made when we review the final edition of the newspaper as a class.