Table-Top Earthquakes

In case of earthquake, go to a safe place before posting on social media. The unit includes 12 lessons, most with hands-on activities or experiments. The first six lessons cover the physical process of earthquakes and volcanoes. Lessons...

Students build and test structures that can best withstand earthquakes. They create their structures from playdough, cornstarch, grape-nuts and popsicle sticks and place their structures on a "shake table."

Shake things up in your STEM or earth science classroom when you have small groups construct their own seismographs. A reading assignment on the history of seismographs, the Richter scale, and current technology sets the stage for the...

Explore our world from within as you lead young scientists on a thrilling adventure. Pupils examine the location of plate boundaries to determine earthquake and volcano distribution around the globe and explore the cause of hot spots in...

Pairs use an online simulation to determine the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake. Using real data about the earthquake's maximum S wave amplitudes, they then determine the magnitude. The resource provides a great career...

We can learn from the past to protect the future. Pairs look at two historical earthquakes: San Francisco, Calif., and Kobe, Japan. Pupils compare the two earthquakes and their impacts, then determine how engineers may use the...

Build and design to rock and roll. Pairs research building design in earthquake areas and use computer simulations to see the effects of earthquakes on buildings,. They then sketch and explain a building design that would withstand a...

As part of a study of earthquakes, groups plot and analyze recent earthquake data, and then design and test an earthquake resistant building. 

Students Examine how earthquakes work and what plate tectonics and fault lines are.  In this earthquake lesson students complete an earthquake scavenger hunt.

Students compare different types of fault movement, compare sounds made when a fault moves, and discover where earthquakes take place and why. They discover the different types of formations made by fault movement.