Jerry Cook
Dear Team Seismic,
First let me assure you that I will get my seismogram up and running again when I get back to America. I have been an exchange teacher in China for three months and the school seismogram broke down the day I left. I have tried to get IT at my school to get it running but to no avail. The link to the article did not work but I can guess at its contents. I think that without curriculum integration the seismogram would be of very limited value. It would be just like a pretty mineral in a glass case, nice to look at but of no educational value other than curiosity. I make the seismogram an important part of my class by following the outline below in more or less this order;
1. Explain how the machine works.
2. Using, interactive web sites, video, springs, and worksheets teach wave motion
3. Help the students interpret seismographs that our seismogram recorded previously.
4. Teach the kids to extract earthquakes using AmaSeis.
5. Teach the kids to calculate distances for nearby events.
6. I have a stack of hundreds of maps available so that whenever there is a local event (within 1000 km) the kids can immediately draw a circle around Phoenix and guess at the location of the earthquake using their knowledge of plate boundaries.
7. I have the students check our near real time link at home each night and they can print the screen, circle the event, and have their parents sign it for extra credit.
8. If the students do some research and present to the class they get more extra credit.
9. If they install AmaSeis at home and upload the .sac file they get more extra credit.
10. As earthquakes occur we discuss the peculiarities of each recording and post them on the wall. The kids learn to tell immediately if the event is close, medium, or far away just by seeing the shape of the recording.
11. We plot all of the earthquakes on a world map throughout the year.
I have a whole file drawer set aside for earthquakes.
I would like to have the kids triangulate using seismographs from other schools but by the time we get three stations to upload the .sac file the kids already know where the epicenter is. They/I go straight to the Internet after we have made our predicted location. Time is of the essence.
Peace,
J. Bob
First let me assure you that I will get my seismogram up and running again when I get back to America. I have been an exchange teacher in China for three months and the school seismogram broke down the day I left. I have tried to get IT at my school to get it running but to no avail. The link to the article did not work but I can guess at its contents. I think that without curriculum integration the seismogram would be of very limited value. It would be just like a pretty mineral in a glass case, nice to look at but of no educational value other than curiosity. I make the seismogram an important part of my class by following the outline below in more or less this order;
1. Explain how the machine works.
2. Using, interactive web sites, video, springs, and worksheets teach wave motion
3. Help the students interpret seismographs that our seismogram recorded previously.
4. Teach the kids to extract earthquakes using AmaSeis.
5. Teach the kids to calculate distances for nearby events.
6. I have a stack of hundreds of maps available so that whenever there is a local event (within 1000 km) the kids can immediately draw a circle around Phoenix and guess at the location of the earthquake using their knowledge of plate boundaries.
7. I have the students check our near real time link at home each night and they can print the screen, circle the event, and have their parents sign it for extra credit.
8. If the students do some research and present to the class they get more extra credit.
9. If they install AmaSeis at home and upload the .sac file they get more extra credit.
10. As earthquakes occur we discuss the peculiarities of each recording and post them on the wall. The kids learn to tell immediately if the event is close, medium, or far away just by seeing the shape of the recording.
11. We plot all of the earthquakes on a world map throughout the year.
I have a whole file drawer set aside for earthquakes.
I would like to have the kids triangulate using seismographs from other schools but by the time we get three stations to upload the .sac file the kids already know where the epicenter is. They/I go straight to the Internet after we have made our predicted location. Time is of the essence.
Peace,
J. Bob
