Edit these using the Publish and Edit Tabs above.
Click on a column on the top of the table to sort.
| Title | Resource Type | Audience | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wells, Nevada Earthquake Teachable Moment (external) | Presentation | Undergraduate | A PowerPoint with slides on Basin and Range tectonics and science results about the earthquake. |
| Utah Mine Collapse Teachable Moment (external) | Presentation | Undergraduate | Text and PowerPoint using the Utah mine collapse to teach focal mechanisms. |
| USArray Wave Visulizations | Animation | All Audiences | The visualizations show how the ground moves as seismic waves sweep across about 400 earthquake recording stations in EarthScope's Transportable Array. |
| UNIX Tutorial for Beginners | Activity | Undergraduate | A beginners guide to the Unix and Linux operating system. Eight simple tutorials which cover the basics of UNIX / Linux commands. http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/ |
| Triangulating Earthquake Locations Online | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | Enter user-defined data; up to 4 station locations, the user determined distance from the station to the epicenter and the location (epicenter) of a selected event, and display this information on a map. Access the Large View Map Generator or the Small View Map Generator to enter the station & event information and generate your map |
| The History of Seismology | Poster | All Audiences | Depicting original sketches, photographs and colorful new imagery, this poster captures the major milestones of the development in the field of seismology. Seismology's rich history begins with Robert Hooke's 1676 paper titled "True Theory of Elasticity or Springness" and continues through the 1830 discovery of P and S waves, the 1930's discovery of the inner core by Inge Lehman, and includes recent innovations such as shake maps, real-time collections of maps depicting shaking intensity within seconds of an earthquake. |
| The 10.5 Teachable Moment | Activity | All Audiences | 1. Students will be able to describe earthquake magnitude. 2. Students will b able to explain major factors that contribute to the amount energy released from an earthquake. 3. Students will be able to explain the likelihood of a mega quake like 10.5 "under the objectives column" and 45 minutes under the time heading. |
| Test Stats | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | This page is to test stats. |
| Sumatra Earthquake Links | Other | All Audiences | Links to resources on the Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake. |
| Sumatra - Andaman Island Earthquake | Poster | All Audiences | This assembly of seismograms displays the vertical movement of the Earth's surface due to seismic waves generated by the earthquake. The seismograms are plotted with respect to time since the start of the earthquake on the horizontal axis and are sorted vertically according to distance from the epicenter in degrees. |
| Simple Analysis of broadband data w/Matlab or Unix | Activity | Undergraduate | This tutorial guides users through obtaining data for a recent earthquake and how to conduct some simple analysis of broadband data. |
| Seismology Introduction Activity | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | This activity has been designed as a way to access a learning groups prior knowledge of and experiences with seismology, while introducing the participants to one another. |
| Seismic Tomography | Other | All Audiences | Introductory description of how seismic tomography is used to determine Earth structure. (3.5 MB PDF) |
| Redefining an Earthquake: EQ Machine Lite Activity 1 | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | In this activity students explore a mechanical model of a fault to teach how energy is stored elastically in rocks and released suddenly as an earthquake. |
| Prof. Larry Braile’s Links (external) | Other | All Audiences | Wide range of earthquake related topics. |
| Past Images of the Week | Other | All Audiences | Photos related to seismology. |
| Locating an earthquake with recent seismic data | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | To understand Plate Tectonic processes on the Earth, and to better understand where future earthquakes are likely to occur, it is important to know how to locate earthquakes as they occur. In this activity students use recent, three-component seismic data to locate a global earthquake. |
| Introduction to Spectral Analysis and Matlab | Activity | Undergraduate | The objective of this lab is to explore the relationship between the time domain and the frequency domain using MATLAB. You will first look at pure sine waves as a function of time and their representation in the frequency domain, and then examine some earthquake data. |
| Introduction to Marine Seismic Processing – ProMAX | Activity | Undergraduate | This presentation and associated activity introduces students to both the concepts of processing marine seismic data as well a providing an introduction to PROMAX software. |
| How Shallow Earth Structure Is Determined | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | Like other waves, seismic waves obey the laws of physics. This activity is intended to provide students with a real-world application for the concepts of waves. It should follow an activity, such as the traditional light lab used in physics courses to to explains concepts such as reflection, refraction and transmission of energy. |
| How “hard” does the ground shake during an earthquake? | Activity | All Audiences | In this activity, students will use a three-component accelerometer (iPhone, laptop or USB) to examine their assumptions about how 'hard" the ground shakes during an earthquake. |
| GMT Tutorial | Activity | Undergraduate | This tutorial guides users through GMT to create a simple map of the Socorro, NM area. |
| Global Seismographic Network | Poster | All Audiences | The Global Seismographic Network (GSN) consists of more than 125 GSN stations located around the world with near-uniform spacing - from the South Pole to Siberia, and from the Amazon Basin to the seafloor of the Northeast Pacific Ocean. This multi-use facility provides data for scientific research, education, earthquake hazard mitigation, tsunami warning, and the international monitoring system for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. In addition, real-time GSN data are broadcast to museum displays that are seen by over 10 million visitors each year. |
| geoPHYSICS | Activity Presentation | Grades 5 to 12 | These geoPHYSICS resources are designed to provide an avenue to help teachers connect and apply the principles of physics to the Earth. Recognizing the limited time for adding new topics to the physics curriculum, the approach taken with these resources is to integrate geophysics topics and applications into the existing physics curriculum without requiring that teachers spend extra time on concepts. For example, why can't a student learn how the magnitude of an earthquake is calculated while demonstrating their basic knowledge of waves? or why do Newton's Laws have to be endlessly applied to car's or boats rather than tectonic plates or seismographs. Thus, by applying the Conceptual Physics approach used by Paul G. Hewitt these resources seek to make connections between the concepts of physics and the Earth and its study. |
| Fault Motion Animations | Animation | All Audiences | These animations are very elementary examples of fault motion intended for simple demonstrations. For more about faults see the NOAA slide show and information page - a rich source of images and textual information. |
| Exploring three-component seismic data with accelerometers | Activity | All Audiences | In this activity, students will use an accelerometer (iPhone, laptop or USB) to kinesthetically explore the physical "meaning" of three component seismic data by replicating a seismogram by moving the accelerometer. |
| Exploring the Earth Using Seismology | Poster | All Audiences | Earthquakes create seismic waves that travel through the Earth. By analyzing these seismic waves, seismologists can explore the Earth's deep interior. |
| Exploring Rates of Earthquake Occurence | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | The activity allows the students to select their own region of interest and to interrogate the earthquake catalog to obtain quantitative data on the rate of occurrence of earthquakes of various magnitudes within their chosen region. |
| Educational Links | Other | All Audiences | Links to other resources for teaching seismology. |
| East african mystery: Exploring plate boundaries with seismic data | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | In this exercise, students will learn about the various types of plate boundaries, investigate well-known examples of some of these boundaries, and then apply what you've learned to East Africa to determine the most likely cause of seismicity in this area of the world. |
| EarthScope and Arizona Video (external) | Video | All Audiences | A short video about EarthScope produced by an Arizona PBS station. |
| Earthquakes… like ripples on water? (teacher) | Activity Poster | Grades 5 to 12 | On this poster, a visualization of ground motion resulting from the February 21, 2008 M 6.0 earthquake that occurred near Wells, NV combines with the image of a faucet to illustrate the classic Earth science instructional analogy; "Seismic waves radiate outward from an earthquake's epicenter like ripples on water". For students, this discrepant image maps the unfamiliar concept of the spreading out of seismic wave (the target) is likened to a similar but more familiar scenario of ripples on water radiating outwards in all directions after a droplet or pebble falls onto it (the analog). Not only is this visual discrepant, it also makes the material approachable by using ideas students are likely to have experienced. When presented at the beginning of seismic waves instruction, this visual analogy is the a catalyst for student-generated questions, inquiry and learning. |
| Earthmodes | Animation | All Audiences | Animations showing the earth's vibrations after a large earthquake. |
| Developing arguments about earthquakes: Earthquake Machine Lite Activity 2 | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | In this activity students use a mechanical fault model to collect empirical data, develop logical arguments about earthquake re-occurrence, and skeptical review other groups arguments. |
| Determining Earth’s Internal Structure | Activity | Grades 5 to 12 | In this unique lesson, students complete two related activities to examine seismic evidence and determine that the Earth a) cannot have a homogeneous composition and, b)must have a layered internal structure. This lesson is also unique in its approach to the process of science. Using an inquiry approach, students are divided into two teams (theoreticians and seismologists) to test the simplest hypothesis for Earth's internal structure; a homogeneous Earth. Theoreticians create a scale model of a homogeneous Earth and using an average seismic wave velocity make predictions about when seismic waves should arrive at various points around Earth. Seismologists then interpret actual seismic data from a recent earthquake to determine seismic arrivals at various points around Earth. Following this the two groups then compare and interpret the implications of their data using a second scale model. |
| Describing a recent seismic event for news reports - SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE May 12, 2008 | Activity | Undergraduate | This pdf file contains all the necessary information required for students to make an assessment of a recent earthquake and prepare to discuss the event with the news media. |
| BOSS Lite - Building Resonance | Demonstration | All Audiences | Describe the impact of building resonance when assessing Earthquake Hazards |
| A Century of Earthquakes | Poster | All Audiences | On April 18, 1906 a powerful earthquake shook San Francisco leading to fires that devastated the city. That earthquake brought seismology into the forefront as a science in the U.S. This poster outlines the lessons learned from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and discusses 100 years of large earthquakes, including the Sumatra earthquake that caused the devastating tsunami. |
