EARTHQUAKES: When I introduce the topic of earthquakes,
the first thing I do is have every student in the room put their
hands flat
on their desks, and their feet firmly on the ground. I pick several
students and send them out in the hall, down the hall, and to a couple
of different places around the school. I tell them to be very quiet
and still, to become 'one with the room'. I then pick up a very large
boulder (the bigger the better), stand on a desk, hold it up in the
air, and drop it on the floor. (You might want to put a piece of
cardboard on the floor). The resulting 'earthquake' is pretty impressive.
I discuss what the students felt, who felt it stronger, how far from
my room was it felt, etc. This then leads to an introduction of seismic
waves. Your students will end up talking about this for weeks to
come, and you'll also get all sorts of strange looks from other teachers.
Chris Visco
P
and S WAVES: I have my whole class come out into the
hall. I hang three signs in the hall, different distances away
from the end
of the hall, with different city names on them. I designate a student
to be an S wave. They are only allowed to walk. I am a P wave,
and I run. We stand together at one end of the hall, where
another student
is the earthquake focus. When they drop a big rock on the floor,
I start running, and the student S wave starts walking. When I
reach the first city, we both stop, and I have a student measure
how many
feet apart we are, and then we discuss why there is a difference.
We go back to the focus, and repeat the procedure two more times,
with my stopping at the second city and then the third city. When
finished, everyone understands travel times, and how the difference
in arrival time between the P and S waves can be used to calculate
epicenter distance.
This
interactive web site allows students to plot a graph from data collected
in the area of an earthquake.
It works nicely but there is a learning curve and if they click back
through the program, they may lose data that they have already collected.
Encourage students to make use of the TUTORIALS (S-P
Lag Time and Understanding
Latitude and Longitude).
Four part series that tells the story of four natural
disasters. There are good animations on this site that show the layers
of the earth as well as information on plate tectonics.
