Where the author teaches is far from the ocean, bordered on one side by forests of ponderosa and by the High Desert on the other. So when his first graders walked into class on the Monday morning after the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami along the coast of Japan--and their usual light conversations about the weekend included some sobering statements about the destruction they had seen on television--he knew he had an opportunity to broaden their horizons. The author sensed an opportunity to use their genuine curiosity about this real-world situation to generate science inquiry. The author uses current events and models to generate inquiry. He uses recycled materials to build a tsunami model. (Contains 2 online resources.)