EARTHQUAKES AND YOU: MAKING EARTH SCIENCE RELEVANT TO 5TH GRADERS

Southern Illinois is sandwiched between the New Madrid Fault Zone to the SSW, and the Wabash Valley Fault Zone to the NE; both fault zones can produce potentially devastating earthquakes. The proximity of these potential hazards to Southern Illinois provides an opportunity to bring to life the importance of earth sciences for 5th grade students in Carbondale, IL. We designed a multi-day project that takes students from learning about the theory of plate tectonics to promoting earthquake hazard preparedness in their community. The project is divided into three main parts: 1) a discussion of earthquakes and the theory of plate tectonics; 2) studying waves on a pond as an analogy for seismic waves, and then working through a free, on-line visualization program to learn how seismologists use seismic waves to determine earthquake locations and magnitudes (http://www.sciencecourseware.org/eec/Earthquake/); and, 3) writing articles about earthquakes and hazard preparedness. Working in small groups, the students wrote, edited, and formatted their own newspapers with articles covering the causes of earthquakes, famous earthquakes, and how to prepare homes and the school for a major earthquake. They then disseminated this information to their families, the school, and the larger community. This project, designed and implemented as part of the GK-12 program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (http://gk12-uiuc.net), with funding from the National Science Foundation (#DGE 0338215), covered a number of the Illinois Learning Standards goals for science and English at the late elementary and middle/junior high school levels (www.isbe.state.il.us/ils). For example, the students collected and recorded data accurately by using consistent measuring and recording techniques, and then produced reasonable explanations of the data. They used interviews and web sites as source materials, and communicated ideas through well-organized and coherently written articles, using correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and structure. By producing in-group edited and revised articles in a newspaper format, students conveyed a clear understanding and interpretation of ideas and information.