"Life In The 21st Century"

With schools being closed during this holiday season we should be prepared (when we return) to explain the tragedy unfolding from the tsunami devastation in South Asia. Fema For Kids is a site you could use to introduce students to disaster links in a Kid Friendly way. PBS Online has a very comprehensive tsunami site called Savage Earth, with animations and interviews. It's important for students to understand that nearly a third (at this moment) of the people killed were children. For younger students it's not advisable to go into details about the deaths but it may be helpful to explain that Natural Disasters happen and are out of our control. However, there are ways to stay safe with the right information beforehand.
There's definitely curriculum integration with this tragic event: science (weather, geology etc), social studies, (explaining historical tsunamis) journalism, (current events) english (writing exercises).
On a side note, I can't imagine waking up and having the rest of "life" as we've known...change forever with no preparation. It's so difficult to comprehend this HORRIBLE natural disaster. But we have a responsibilty to discuss it with our young people.