Below I have pasted a message distributed internally to UCL's Earth Sciences
Department by the co-ordinator of this initiative, Lars Stixrude
([log in to unmask]). If anyone wants to know more, I suggest they contact
him direct.
[message follows]
As project coordinator, I would like to welcome all to the launch of
UCL's partnership in this project on April 1.
This is a great opportunity for our department to help bring science
into the classroom, allowing students to interact with real data from
earthquakes in real time. The project capitalizes on students' innate
fascination with the power of earthquakes by making seismology a
unifying theme in a set of simple classroom activities that teach a
range of basic science concepts. The project also has a "wow" factor
by enabling schools to operate their own seismometers that are
sensitive enough to record signals from large earthquakes on the far
side of the world. After a large earthquake, schools anywhere in the
world will be able to exchange and compare signals that their own
seismometers have recorded. Actually detecting signals from events of
global significance has a profound effect on school children, making
them realise that science is more than a set of abstract ideas, but
rather a way of understanding how the real world works.
Our department, with help from the Royal Astronomical Society, is
providing the seismometers, to be installed at selected schools in
London, and a training session for the teachers by the British
Geological Survey to take place on the UCL campus April 1, 2009.
I attach the agenda for the training course and a youtube video about
the project.
Regards,
Lars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZYN6s-yXM8
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