Students will use online earthquake hazard maps and other relevant geological information to assess hazards to life and property associated with hypothetical earthquakes of differing magnitude. Students working in small groups use this information to develop strategies to reduce damage and loss of life in the area near their home or school. This lesson will help students gain an understanding of the ... Full description.

The Public Earthquake Resource Center at the University of Memphis provides information about the New Madrid seismic zone and earthquake hazards in general. Students and the general public can learn about earthquakes; examine science fair ideas, a reading list, and earthquake images; or explore a career as an earthquake scientist. For educators there are links to teacher's resources, lesson plans, ... Full description.

This activity has students gather and plot records of earthquakes. It is designed to be either long or short term, depending on the needs of the instructor. Students will gain practice working with map coordinates while becoming familiar with the frequency of earthquake occurrences, the location and magnitude of earthquakes, and the locations of plate boundaries. In addition, this exercise will illustrate ... Full description.

Because of their devastating potential, there is great interest in predicting the location and time of large earthquakes. This site explains that although a great deal is known about where earthquakes are likely, there is currently no reliable way to predict the days or months when an event will occur in any specific location. The Northridge and Parkfield earthquakes along with the Loma Prieta earthquake ... Full description.

This site presents photos of some building damage from notable earthquakes and some associated intensity maps. This information will help students recognize the types of damage done to structures by earthquakes. The examples are classified by the dominant mode of failure observed and include soft first story collapse, mid-story building collapse, buildings shifted off of their foundations, freeway ... Full description.

This booklet features a collection of articles originally published for teachers by the San Francisco Chronicle. It presents some of the new understanding gained and scientific advances made in the century since the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Topics include lessons learned from the 1906 earthquake, the use of seismograms, recognizing active faults, and the use of trenches to investigate ... Full description.

This collection of animations, demonstration projects, paper models, and other teaching tools is designed to aid in the understanding of geologic processes. Topics include sea-floor spreading and subduction, earthquakes, seismology, magnetometers, volcanoes, and wave types. Links are provided to other sites containing paper models (i.e., volcano, trilobite, nautiloid) and other geology and natural ... Full description.

In this activity students create a plot of worldwide earthquake epicenters to display the narrow zones of seismic activity of the Earth and aid in an understanding of plate tectonics. Students will either plot a list of earthquake locations on a small map or plot daily or weekly locations from the Web on a large wall map of the world. It is useful to initially perform the epicenter plotting activity ... Full description.

This report on the causes of earthquakes uses India as a focal point. The author's narrative essay discusses the earthquakes that have occurred in India from 1737 to 1991, geological forces that create earthquakes, effects of earthquakes and tsunamis, and the work engineers are doing to reduce the damage of earthquakes. The author's sketches include plate interaction, layers of the earth, fault zones, ... Full description.

This resource explores earthquakes and seismic hazards, using the San Francisco area as an example. Materials include histories of San Francisco's earthquakes, including the 1906 'Great Earthquake' and the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. A section on quake basics addresses the relationship between earthquakes and plate tectonics, fault movements, seismic waves, and how earthquakes are measured. For educators, ... Full description.