Earthquakes- 3 day lesson plan

Course: Earth System Sciences

Day 1- The science of earthquakes
Colorado Science Standards
● Natural hazards and other geological events have shaped the course of human history
at local, regional, and global scales.
● Colorado Essential Skills and Science and Engineering Practices:
1. Create a computational model or simulation of a phenomenon, designed device,
process, or system.
2. Design or refine a solution to a complex real-world problem, based on scientific
knowledge, student-generated sources of evidence, prioritized criteria, and trade-off
considerations.

Learning Targets
● Students can explain how the movement of tectonic plates causes earthquakes.
● Students can define convection, density, and friction and use these terms within their
scientific explanation of earthquakes

Engage (5 minutes) San Andreas movie clip

Movie Clip

Explore (15 minutes) Ask students to define “stress” as they hear it

every day. Stress is pressure or anxiety
people can experience.
What makes you stressed?
How do you release stress?
Stress is also a scientific word, but it means
something slightly different. Tell students that
plate boundaries also become stressed.
Discuss with the class what this might mean.

Give each table a rubber band, a spring, and

two sheets of sandpaper. Have them
squeeze the spring in between their hands.
Try to get them to name this type of stress.
Emphasize that the spring does not like being
pressed into this position. Do the same while
having them pull the rubber band. Next, have
them slide the sandpaper against itself. Have
them test how much force is necessary.
These are all basic models of how plate
boundaries interact and induce stress.

Explain (20-30 minutes) Stations

Either with a partner or individual (leave it up
 to the choice of the student), students will
walk around to different stations. As they
explore, they will learn about the three main
types of stress that plate tectonics experience
1. Compression
2. Tension
3. Shearing
Students should already be somewhat
familiar with the movement of plate tectonics.
This activity is designed both for review and
in some stations to gather new information.
Stations
Stations Worksheet

Elaborate What is the relationship between human

induced earthquakes activities and earthquakes?
https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquak
e-hazards/science/induced-earthquakes

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/inj
ecting-wastewater-underground-can-caus
e-earthquakes-up-to-10-kilometers-away

Show students the graph depicting the

increase in frequency of earthquakes. What
are potential human activities that could
cause earthquakes?
- Mining, drilling, disturbing ground
structures in any way
- Injection of wastewater into the
ground as a byproduct of fracking
(causes increases in pressure)
- Carbon capture storage!!!
- Nuclear explosions
- Geothermal operations
Relate to increased demand for natural
resources

Evaluate Collect their station worksheets to assess

knowledge
 Day 2- Simulating Earthquakes
Colorado Science Standards
● Natural hazards and other geological events have shaped the course of human history
at local, regional, and global scales.
● Colorado Essential Skills and Science and Engineering Practices:
1. Create a computational model or simulation of a phenomenon, designed device,
process, or system.
2. Design or refine a solution to a complex real-world problem, based on scientific
knowledge, student-generated sources of evidence, prioritized criteria, and trade-off
considerations.

Learning Targets
● Students can analyze the impacts of earthquakes and assess the severity based on
location, intensity, population, and income.

Engage (10 minutes) Watch videos of different magnitude

earthquakes, review the Richter Scale.
Spaghetti Earthquakes

Explore/ Explain (40 minutes)
Split the class into three groups; lower
income, middle income, and wealthy. You
can split them evenly or, to be slightly more
interesting, make the lower income group the
largest and the wealthiest the smallest. The
lower income group will be given 50 or so
wooden popsicle sticks. The middle income
groups will be given straw toys and
connectors.. The wealthy will be given
legos.GIve each group 7- 10 minutes to build
a structure. Encourage them to make it look
like a house. They should use all the
resources they were given. They cannot
trade or donate. When they are done, go
around to each group and simulate a
magnitude 1-3 earthquake. Do this by
 kicking the leg of the table that the structure
was built on. Have students observe which
structures survived and which were
damaged. Observe the extent of the
damage.
At this point. Give the middle and wealthy
groups time to adjust their structures. Do not
give the lower income this option.
Next, simulate a magnitude 4-6 earthquake
by shaking the table with a moderate amount
of force.
Have students observe which structures
survived and which were damaged.
Observe the extent of the damage.
At this point, give only the wealthy group a
chance to adjust their structure if they would
like.
Lastly, simulate a magnitude 7-9 earthquake
by shaking the table back and forth with
significant force. Do so with the intent of
knocking down all structures. Have students
observe which structures survived and which
were damaged. Observe the extent of the
damage.

Elaborate (20 minutes) As a class, come up with the potential

impacts of an earthquake. Have students
come up and write them on the board. Some
examples:
- Homes and buildings destroyed
- People injured or killed
- Families separated
- Water and sewage pipes damaged
As a class, visit Causes of earthquakes -
Earthquakes - AQA - GCSE Geography
Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize
View pages 4 and 5 together (the two case
studies). Look at the impacts of each
earthquake and the impacts. Discuss the
differences between Christchurch and Haiti.
How did the impacts of each earthquake
differ despite the fact that they were around
the same magnitude? What are the potential
reasons for this? How were the earthquake
responses different?

Evaluate Evaluate student participation during the

elaborate discussion. Are they
understanding the impacts of wealth
disparity?
 Day 3- Interpreting seismographs
Colorado Science Standards
● Natural hazards and other geological events have shaped the course of human history
at local, regional, and global scales.
● Colorado Essential Skills and Science and Engineering Practices:
1. Create a computational model or simulation of a phenomenon, designed device,
process, or system.
2. Design or refine a solution to a complex real-world problem, based on scientific
knowledge, student-generated sources of evidence, prioritized criteria, and trade-off
considerations.

Learning Targets
● Students can define the difference between S waves and P waves.
● Students can interpret the main elements of a seismograph, including S and P waves,
S-P intervals, and amplitude.
● Students can analyze the relationship between S-P intervals, amplitude, and the severity
of an earthquake.
● Students can analyze the variety of impacts an earthquake can have based on

Engage How a seismogram works

How to Determine Richter Magnitude

Explore Seismogram Simulation

Explain Formative assignment

Elaborate Class discussion on predicting earthquakes.

They should have already done some
research into this because of the worksheet
from the explain section.
Key discussion points
-scientists have no accurate way of predicting
earthquakes
- there are some signs of earthquakes
occurring such as a swarm of small
earthquakes, increasing amounts of radon in
local water, unusual behavior of animals,
increasing size of magnitudes in moderate
size events, or a moderate-magnitude event
rare enough to suggest that it might be a
foreshock. These are not reliable, as many of
these “signs” occur without a preceding
earthquake
- How can we prepare for earthquakes
Does wealth inequality impact certain groups
 of people’s ability to prepare for an
earthquake?

Evaluate Grade the worksheet as a formative

Extra time:
Why are earthquakes so hard to predict…