Curriculum and Instructional Resources
Materials
Educational posters can be found in the publications section of our IRIS website.
Educational one pagers can be found in the publications section of the IRIS website.
Demonstrations
BOSS Lite - Building Resonance
Describe the impact of building resonance when assessing Earthquake Hazards
Activities
Plotting Earthquake Epicenters
In this activity students will plot worldwide earthquake epicenters to reveal the narrow zones of seismic activity on the Earth and aid in the understanding of plate tectonics. Students will use current reports of seismic events available on the internet to track global seismicity.
Describing a recent seismic event for news reports - SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE May 12, 2008
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.
Developing arguments about earthquakes: Earthquake Machine Lite Activity 2
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.
Exploring Rates of Earthquake Occurence
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.
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.
Triangulating Earthquake Locations Online
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
Simple Analysis of broadband data w/Matlab or Unix
This tutorial guides users through obtaining data for a recent earthquake and how to conduct some simple analysis of broadband data.
Redefining an Earthquake: EQ Machine Lite Activity 1
In this activity students explore a mechanical model of a fault to develop a definition of an earthquake.
This tutorial guides users through GMT to create a simple map of the Socorro, NM area.
How Do We Know Where an Earthquake Originated?
Do your students locate earthquakes by picking P and S arrivals from old textbook seismograms? In this activity your students will use “real” 3-component seismic data from newsworthy earthquakes as part of the location exercise. Includes instructions for locating events on inflatable globes or using an online mapping site.
Introduction to Spectral Analysis and Matlab
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.
In this activity, students will use SeisMac to kinesthetically explore the “meaning” of three component seismic data.
In this activity, students will use SeisMac, or another three component accelerometer to examine their assumptions about how ‘hard” the ground shakes during an earthquake.
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/
Animations
Animations showing the earth’s vibrations after a large earthquake.
Earthquake Wave Visualizations
Charles Ammon, a professor at Penn State University, has developed animations of real data showing how seismic waves sweep the transportable array of seismometers. Watch how earthquake waves originating from the US and around the world cause the ground at each seismometer to slightly shift up and down.
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.
Introduction to Marine Seismic Processing – ProMAX
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.
Videos
EarthScope and Arizona Video (external)
A short video about EarthScope produced by an Arizona PBS station.
Presentations
Wells, Nevada Earthquake Teachable Moment (external)
A PowerPoint with slides on Basin and Range tectonics and science results about the earthquake.
Utah Mine Collapse Teachable Moment (external)
Text and PowerPoint using the Utah mine collapse to teach focal mechanisms.
Links
Links to resources on the Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake.
Photos related to seismology.
Prof. Larry Braile’s Links (external)
Wide range of earthquake related topics.
Links to other resources for teaching seismology.
