Natural Disasters is an English-language project for ILS 7th and 8th graders, culminating in a public defense. The panel of judges, which included teacher Rhonda Slugoski (Canada) and 11th grade students Taisia Moroz and Semen Kostyuchenko, evaluated the competitors for the following criteria: working with information; visual content; expressiveness; contact with the audience; student participation in preparation, and several others for a total of eight criteria.

"The students covered very important topics in their presentations: droughts, tsunamis, floods, landslides, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches and various other natural disasters," explains English language teacher and IB coordinator for grades 5-9 Svetlana Feshchenko. "The students also talked about the nature of these disasters and how to protect yourself if you are caught in one."

The students' defense included serious presentations and video clips. Many included appropriate attire and other elements to help bring the presentations to life.

"It is very important to understand the nature of different kinds of natural phenomena, how to protect yourself and, where possible, to prevent them from happening and deal with the consequences," says ILS Principal Olga Shevchenko. "Since the project defense was in English, the students used specialized lexical material and also gained experience in presenting to an audience and answering questions quickly and effectively."