Quake Prints - Assessment

Going Further

1. Go on a field trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science and let their excellent educators teach your students all about using seismographs. Afterwards, let students explore the interactive exhibits in the Forces the Shape the Bay exhibition.
2. Try any one of the activities in the Earthquake! curriculum set, created by the Center for Science Education at the University of California, Berkeley. There are lesson plans for building your own seismograph, reading seismograms, locating epicenters, and using seismic clues to understand the interior of the Earth.
3. For a kinesthetic version of this activity, try Whose Fault is It? by Eric Muller of the Exploratorium Teachers’ Institute (download Whose Fault is It? from Eric’s website under Earth Science activities). Students link hands and transmit p and s waves through their bodies and use the timing delay to calculate the epicenter of the earthquake.
4. Listen to an earthquake! USGS has converted seismograms to sound files. Students can use them to reinforce seismology concepts such as how distance and magnitude affect a seismogram.