John or Jan Lahr
Jerry Cook (alias J.Bob) teaches at the Phoenix, Arizona, Country Day School,
sent this message recently which contains a lot of practical suggestions as to
how the classroom AS-1 seismic system can be used.
How are others integrating their seismic system into their teaching?
Cheers,
John Lahr
>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
sent this message recently which contains a lot of practical suggestions as to
how the classroom AS-1 seismic system can be used.
How are others integrating their seismic system into their teaching?
Cheers,
John Lahr
>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
