Teachable Moments

This week’s investigation focuses on earthquake shaking.  While the magnitude of an earthquake is an important way to describe an earthquake, it doesn’t tell the whole story of how a community might experience an earthquake. Magnitude describes the total amount of energy released from the earthquake. However, the amount of damage to buildings and infrastructure during earthquakes relates more to local ground motion (e.g. shaking) than to the magnitude of the earthquake. And, the degree of shaking can vary considerably from place to place during the same earthquake due to a variety of factors that we will explore.  We hope you will find it useful, and your students find it enjoyable and educative!