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UK School Seismology Project

The UK School Seismology Project training day for teachers - bringing ‘real science with real data’ to the classroom.

The Department of Earth Sciences at UCL launched its partnership in the UK School Seismology Project with a teacher training day on April 1. The aim of the project is to help bring science into the classroom, allowing students to interact with real data from earthquakes in real time.

The project capitalizes on students' innate fascination with the power of earthquakes by making seismology a unifying theme in a set of simple classroom activities that teach a range of basic science concepts. The project also has a "wow" factor by enabling schools to operate their own seismometers that are sensitive enough to record signals from large earthquakes on the far side of the world. After a large earthquake, schools anywhere in the world will be able to exchange and compare signals that their own seismometers have recorded. Actually detecting signals from events of global significance has a profound effect on school children, making them realise that science is more than a set of abstract ideas, but rather a way of understanding how the real world works.

The Department of Earth Sciences, with help from the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, provided the seismometers, to be installed at selected schools in London, and hosted the training session by the British Geological Survey. Science teachers from 13 secondary schools around London attended the all-day course, where they learned the principles of seismometry, how to assemble and operate the seismometer, and many useful ideas for classroom activities. 

Enquiries should be directed to the project organizer, Professor Lars Stixrude (l.stixrude@ucl.ac.uk) 020 7679 7929 (office).

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