IB Geography Internal Assessment

To what extend do high classes have a much higher

preparation for earthquakes than lower classes taking the
point of each of their beliefs and also cultural parts, also
talking about their progression in preparation from before?

Name : Stefano de Gennaro

Candidate number : 019
School code : 004288
School name : St. Georges College
Words : 2243

1
 Contents:

Acknowledgement
3

Fieldwork question and geographic context

4

Method(s) of investigation
7

Quality and treatment of information collected

9

Written analysis
12

Evaluation
13

Bibliography 14

APPENDIX [1] 16

APPENDIX [2] & [3]: 17

2
 Acknowledgement

I would like to thanks my partner who was, Vicente Tintorer which collected
the data with me, also my teachers Elizabeth and Peter Llanos, for giving me
guidance and support. My parents for giving me guidance and support and possibly
paying for your schooling and also some extra classes out-school to become better.
At the same time thanking all the interviewed please that helped me collect all the
data needed for this assignment.

3
 Fieldwork question and geographic context

To what extend do high classes have a much higher

preparation for earthquakes than lower classes taking the
point of each of their beliefs and also cultural parts, also
talking about their progression in preparation from before?

This question was developed to show the differences between high

classes preparation and lower classes preparation according to their
knowledge, reason or even culture. There were two main places
where we investigated, and this were La Encantada de Villa that is our
High Class and Villa El Salvador that is taken as a low Class. We chose
these places because there is a huge difference between these two
classes, and thanks to that we can find a big difference within
preparation.

Picture 1: Shows La Encantada De Villa (high class), were the

questionnaire was made to know more about the preparations for
high classes.

4
PICTURE TAKEN FROM GOOGLE MAPS

Picture 2: Shows Villa El Salvador (low class). Were the questionnaire

was made to know more about the preparations for high classes.

5
PICTURE TAKEN FROM GOOGLE MAPS

Our expectations for this assignment was that the high classes were
going to have almost a better preparation and also knowledge about
whats an earthquake, but at the same time we could get some
persons in the lower class that are better prepared to this type of
hazard, but they dont really know what this is or what causes it.

Later on, as we have the part of when there is an earthquake that the
ground shakes, buildings respond to the acceleration transmission,
that is transmitted from the ground and all the way through the
structures of buildings and/ or houses and how the different materials
from high classes and low classes also affect the damages and the
evacuation planning.

These two places are near the ocean as we can see in Picture 1 and
Picture 2. So in this case, another thing that might be en issue will be
a tsunami happening as an earthqueake. Cause tsunamis can be
generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically
displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a particular
kind of earthquake that are associated with the earth's crustal

6
deformation; when these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the
water above the deformed area is displaced from its equilibrium
position. Waves are formed as the displaced water mass, which acts
under the influence of gravity, attempts to regain its equilibrium.
When large areas of the sea floor elevate or subside, a tsunami can
be created1, so this is another issue to be aware of.

Making a last reference for my research question, knowing the

difference between the preparation of this two places will benefit the
ones with less preparation, cause this statistics will be taken to
national security so they can act and see how they are prepared and
who needs help in case there is this type of hazard.

1How do earthquakes generate tsunamis? (2012).

http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/tsunami/general/physics/earthquake.ht
ml

7
 Method(s) of investigation

For this investigation my team and I developed a questionnaire so

that we could collect the different results from high classes and low
classes so then we could remark the differences between them and
make a graph and/or Table, showing the differences.

The questionnaire that we did to the persons in La Encantada and

Villa el Salvador was made in Spanish so they could understand us.
And here we can see the questions that were in the questionnaire,
that were nine, also taking in some cases taking extra questions as
talking with the ones that answer our questions with their beliefs,
such as in question Do you have a defined route of evacuation,
there was one person that told us, that it was were god takes him.

1. Cul es su ingreso mensual aproximado, en soles? (whats your

income in a month?)

2. Es usted consciente de algn sistema que pudiera advertirle que

un tsunami va a impactar esta rea? (Are you aware of any system
that could warn that a tsunami will impact this area?)

3. Tiene usted un equipo de emergencia? (Do you have an

emergency kit?)

4. Tiene una ruta de evacuacin establecida? ( Do you have a

defined route of evacuation?)

5. Alguna ha puesto en prctica dicha ruta de evacuacin? (if so,

have you practice that route?)

6. Cuntas horas esperara usted en tierra alta despus de que una

alerta de tsunami fuese enviada? ( How many hours would you expect
high ground after a tsunami warning was sent?)

7. Si escuchara que un tsunami se aproxima, a travs de un canal no

oficial, por ejemplo, los rumores de la vecindad, esperara una
advertencia oficial a fin de tomar medidas? (If you hear that a
tsunami is approaching, through unofficial channels, for example,
rumors of the neighborhood, would you expect an official warning to
take action?)

8
8. En una escala del 1 al 10 (siendo el 10 el ms alto), usted cree
que su distrito est bien preparado en caso de un tsunami? (On a
scale of 1 to 10 (10 being highest), do you think your district is well
prepared in case of a tsunami?)

9. Qu medidas ha tomado su vecindario/distrito a fin de mejorar su

nivel de preparacin en caso de un tsunami? ( What has your
neighborhood / district to improve their level of preparedness for a
tsunami?)

Thanks to this questions we could start our investigation and making

out calculations with respect to each standard of preparation. So this
will be taken as our primary data.

Primary data is Data that has been collected from first-hand-

experience is known as primary data. Primary data has not been
published yet and is more reliable, authentic and objective. Primary
data has not been changed or altered by human beings; therefore its
validity is greater than secondary data2, and so the primary data as I
said before help us see if were on a good track of our investigation.

In the collection of our data we decided to put it on a line table chart

because it will be better as we had a lot of yes and no answers, to
take the averages of people saying yes and no and also at making the
graphs its easier from a table chart.

Secondary Data is data

collected from a source that
has already been published in
any form is called as
secondary data. The review of
literature in nay research is
based on secondary data.
Mostly from books, journals
and periodicals3.

On the right side is shown one

part of villa el Salvador as we
were doing our questionnaires

2 Gulnazahmad. March 3, 2013. Primary and Secondary Data.

http://gulnazahmad.hubpages.com/hub/-Primary-and-Secondary-Data

3 Gulnazahmad. March 3, 2013. Primary and Secondary Data.

http://gulnazahmad.hubpages.com/hub/-Primary-and-Secondary-Data

9
that we stopped to search on newspapers about hazards that affected
those places in the last years.

Quality and treatment of information collected

Thanks to the questionnaires did we could make an evaluation and

some graphs, showing the difference between the preparedness on La
encantada and Villa El Salvador. Also thanks to this we are getting to
the point that we can see if our hypothesis done was right. Because
we said that the preparedness in La encantada will be higher than in
villa el Salvador cause of the differences between income.

On GRAPH 1.0 we could say that it has been progressing cause first
one year ago the preparedness of the neighbourhood was almost all
below 9 and now we can see that it has reached 10 but at the same
time we could say that as more people enter to that urbanization less
people knows about the problems that could happen in La Encantada
(near the beach).

10
 Preparedness Neighbourhood on La Encantada
12
10
8
Preparedness from 1 to 10 6 Preparedness
4 Neighbourhood

2
0

GRAPH 1.0

Then we have the preparation of the low class that is in this case Villa
El Salvador, that as we can see their preparedness has an average of
4 out of 10. In this case as I was making the survey some persons told
me about their culture and what they do in case there is a hazard, so
in that case they were represented as a 1 in the preparedness as we
can see in the GRAPH 2.0.

11
 Preparedness Neighbourhood on Villa El Salvador
7
6
5
4
Preparedness from 1 to 10 3
2
1
0

GRAPH 2.0

Then thanks to our data taken we can also make our Graph about
their knowledge about earthquakes, as we can see on graph 3.0.

Graph 3.0, show the information that the ones that live in the La
encantada know about earthqueakes, and their prevention. As we can
see in the graph there are some persons that had low information
about earthquakes, so in this case this is helping my hypothesis made
cause, there will be some persons from high class that have less
knowledge about this hazard, so what will this mean?

For me this means that, these persons have the resources to know
about this topic but as they feel secure cause as they are from the
high class, the government will support them in case a hazard
happens, because of their higher income into the country, but not as
Villa el Salvador.

12
 Information known about earthquakes for la encantada
80
70
60
50
40
From 0 to 15 Information meetings
30
20
10
0

Number of people being surveid

GRAPH 3.0

In Graph 4.0 we can see that again the hypothesis made was right,
some persons in low classes are better in formatted about
earthquakes. Maybe because they have more respect for life in my
opinion, and they know that they need the preparation and
knowledge to know what to do in case this hazard happens, to avoid
more damages that there are already going to be.

13
 Information known about earthquakes for villa sal
12

10

From 0 to 15 6
Informat

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Number of people being surveid

GRAPH 4.0

Written analysis

First how does an earthquake happen? It happens with the tectonic

plates, at the time that they make up the surface of the Earth move
or shake into each other, or even make them slide under each other.
Before we do the questionnaire

Now seeing the progress in what everyone knows; Progress in the

world is defined by the person and the knowledge that the person
knows about that theme, for example, if we have someone from the
higher class in one room showing him an iPod and in the other room

14
someone from a lower class with the same iPod, you will see that the
person from the higher class will say that theres not any progress at
all that you can see that anywhere know a days, but in the case of a
lower class person he will see an iPod like a super progress in
technology but as we know its not true.

On one hand, reason as its own acts as a source of knowledge in two

ways: by deductive reasoning or inductive reasoning, where you can
get new information from a general thing to specific or from specific
to general respectively. So, reason is a reliable source, it is still limited
by the persons previous knowledge, for example if you have a bad
information like when you see a pigeon flying, then you see an eagle
flying, and finally you see an owl flying, and by using reason you can
say, that as they are all birds, then all birds should fly, but it isnt.
Then, reason is could confuse you at those moments, this mistake
could also be generalization, but that is a thing we always do.

On the other hand, perception as a source of knowledge is divided by

your sense because with different senses you can perceive different
things, and actually it is a reliable source because you have 5 ways of
confirming if something you realized is right because you can see
something and say that it has a determined shape, then you can
check it by touching it, so when you use more than one sense could
be reliable. However, the same as reason, it is subjective, and it
depends on the persons senses because we see, feel, smell, hear and
taste the world in different ways and what for someone tastes really
sweet, for someone it could be bitter, or what for someone could be
red, for another person it could be pin

Although, I think that the both sources of knowledge combined could

work well, because you can perceive things with your 5 different
senses, and with that you can reason to reach a conclusion that could
be more accurate than what you could do with those sources by their
own. Lets think and example, you can smell something burning and
you can feel the heat coming to you, and with that information you
can use reason and think that heat and the smell of something
burning means fire, and with that you can save your life

Evaluation

From the begging as I started collecting my data, as more persons

were answering to our questions our data was higher so our

15
conclusion will be exact. So thanks to that we could prove that of
hypothesis were right and or expectations to.

Know we know that as persons have more income in this case the
higher class they care less about prevention than lower classes but in
terms of preparation, they are better prepared because of the
resources and the knowledge they have about this type of hazard and
what could happen in an extreme case.

Hazard has conditioned us to live in hazard. All our pleasures are

dependent upon it. Even though I arrange for a pleasure; and look
forward to it, my eventual enjoyment of it is still a matter of hazard.
Wherever time passes, there is hazard. You may die before you turn
the next page. (John Fowles, Aristos)

16
 Bibliography

- Earthquake(wikipedia) http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/

- Terremotos En La ltima Semana (Google Maps)

http://www.earthquakes.tafoni.net

- Natural Disaters (2012)

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-
disasters/earthquake.htm

- By Poushali Ganguly (Last Updated 3/23/2012)

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/what-causes-earthquake.html

- Google Images http://www.google.com/images?oe=UTF-

8&gfns=1&q=what+causes+earthquakes&um=1&ie=UTF-
8&source=univ&ei=_oClTIjYOpCF4QaEuuXrDA&sa=X&oi=image
_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDcQsAQwAw&biw=9
87&bih=575

- USGS/Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, Washington

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Seismicity/what_causes_eart
hquakes.html

- Mrs. Lea Bolves IB Theory of Knowledge II: Summer Assignment.

https://www.ocps.net/lc/east/hun/academics/programs/ib/Docum
ents/IB%20Theory%20of%20Knowledge%20II%20-%20Senior
%20Year.pdf

- Scientific Progress (October 1).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-progress/

- John McCarth. What is progress? http://www-

formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/progress.html

- Gulnazahmad. March 3, 2013. Primary and Secondary Data.

http://gulnazahmad.hubpages.com/hub/-Primary-and-
Secondary-Data

17
Other links:
- http://findhorn.blogspot.com/2013/03/responses-nov-
2013summary.html
- http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pablo_picasso.ht
ml
- http://arthistory.about.com/cs/reference/f/what_is_art.htm
Multimedia
- http://www.disastervideo.net/earthquake-car.php
- http://projects.crustal.ucsb.edu/understanding/quiz/
- http://www.quizplz.com/science/earth/earthquake-quiz.htm

18
 APPENDIX [1]

The results of the questionnaire made for villa El Salvador and La

Encantada so take information about their preparedness against
earthquakes

19
APPENDIX [2] & [3]: The results of the questionnaire made for villa
El Salvador and La Encantada so take information about their
preparedness against earthquakes

20