LCMS Students Learn about Seismology

On Wed. 2/19 La Center Middle School students in Laurie’s Cripe’s Science class were visited by Travis West, the lead geophysicist on the Washington State School Seismic Safety Project (SSSP), an initiative led by the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Washington Geological Survey (WGS). The SSSP is a statewide project to evaluate how Washington public school buildings could be affected by earthquake shaking.

Students were given a demonstration of how seismic waves move through the ground and are picked up by sensors linked into computers by hitting a rock with a hammer and observing the results.  The data collected is then used to gain insight into the characteristics of the soil and how it will respond in an earthquake.