The Improving Earthquake Monitoring is a course designed to explore how NASA is improving earthquake monitoring in the United States and worldwide. The content is designed to provide you with background information, connections to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, and resources to use in your classroom. Improving Earthquake Monitoring is a dynamic, standards-based curriculum for grades 5-9 that provides students the opportunity to investigate, evaluate, design, and present a solution for a real world problem that will not only contribute to our knowledge of how earthquakes shape the surface of the earth, but also inform our understanding of environmental hazards at the global level.
Improving Earthquake Monitoring is a starting point for middle school educators to engage students in NASA’s efforts to improve earthquake monitoring across the United States and throughout the world. At this time, baseline data have been collected throughout California and a few other regions, such as Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The primary challenge of Improving Earthquake Monitoring is to identify where, how, and why additional baseline data should be collected.
Improving Earthquake Monitoring is divided into five chapters that align with NASA’s flight mission process. Chapter 1 provides an educator orientation to the curriculum. Chapter 2 focuses on the study of earthquakes, including the causes and locations of earthquakes; scale and measurement of earthquakes; impact and ways to mitigate earthquakes’ effects. This section leads students to identify new areas where collection of baseline earthquake data is critical. Chapter 3 focuses on the principles of flight and flight planning, including requirements for planning a flight on the C-20A / Gulfstream-III aircraft. Chapter 4 addresses the collection of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar data during the flight mission and how data is then analyzed. Finally, Chapter 5 focuses on how researchers use the results to present findings and make applications. Included in this section is information on the Improving Earthquake Monitoring Flight Mission Challenge. In this contest, small teams of students are challenged to design a flight mission to collect baseline earthquake monitoring data. This challenge could be conducted at the class, school, or district level. Resources include rules and requirements, multimedia formats and resources, and evaluation rubrics. Through Improving Earthquake Monitoring activities and independent research, student teams will:
- Select a site for earthquake monitoring;
- Prepare a flight plan; and
- Develop a multimedia proposal.
If you have technical difficulties navigating the site please submit an email to the address provided under Technical support. Have fun learning and feel free to provide us with any feedback you may have.
Jane Moore (Faculty)