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When an earthquake occurs, it sends waves along the surface and through the ground. These waves are recorded by sensors (seismographs) that have been buried in many places around the world. Scientists use the recordings to locate an earthquake and measure its strength.

Topics and Connections:

• Earthquakes
• Designing tools
• Communicating ideas

Materials:

• various writing instruments (felt-tip and ballpoint pens, pencils, chalk...)
• tape, string, books, rulers, empty boxes, scissors, rubber bands, paper, aluminum foil... The more options you give students to choose from, the better.

Directions:

Students:

• Work at separate tables in small groups.
• Using the materials provided, design and fine-tune a device that will record an "earthquake" (or other motion) that your table experiences.
• Have teams show off their device in action, simulating an earthquake by shaking or hitting the table.

Questions To Ask:

• How do the different devices work?
• What different kinds of motion is their device designed to detect (up/down, side-to-side, continuous, abrupt...)?
• What features do they have in common?
• What made some of the raw materials good for using in their construction?
• What kinds of problems did they encounter during the design process, and how did they overcome them?

Follow Up:

• Take the ideas generated in the group discussion to improve your device with more specific goals in mind: try to make it as sensitive as possible, detect when and for how long the motion happened, distinguish between 'real' motions of the table from 'noise' (people walking nearby, doors slamming...)

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