JOHN LAHR AND THE IRIS E&O PROGRAM: CONTRIBUTIONS TO HAZARDS EDUCATION

John Lahr was a key contributor to the IRIS E&O program and his dedication provided significant earthquake and volcanic hazards education in the PNW. John was an original member of the committee that guides the E&O program and he helped to initiate the Seismographs in Schools program that became a primary focus of his educational efforts, particularly when he retired and moved to the PNW. The distribution of educational seismographs by IRIS was in some ways the culmination of a paper John had written 30 years ago on how to engage the public in recording earthquakes. Through the seismographs in schools program, he worked with teachers in the PNW and across the country to engage students in the recording of earthquakes so as to increase their awareness of seismic hazards. To increase teacher involvement, he figured out how to have the teachers share their recordings, and provided suggestions for countless improvements to the software. He shared his sense of wonder and curiosity about the world using simple and practical explanations, whether it was squeezing a rock, breaking spaghetti to teach about faults, or measuring and photographing how fast his fingernails grew to teach how fast tectonic plates move. He understood the importance of reaching the public, which he did via participation in science fairs and family science days, and the involvement with displays at science museums.

As John showed by his example, IRIS E&O works to increase awareness of seismic hazards by improving public and student understanding of seismology and earth science. In addition to educational seismographs, IRIS has been involved in hazards education in the PNW, including a new Cascadia module for the Active Earth Display (AED) and public lectures presented by Brian Atwater on the Orphan Tsunami of 1700 as part of the IRIS/SSA lecture series. The AED is an interactive computer-based museum display for small museums, visitor centers, schools and libraries. The Cascadia module presents near-real-time information and animations about earthquakes, volcanos and tsunamis in the PNW, with a goal of engaging the user to become more aware of hazards in the region.