Earthquake Tracking (Hirst)

Christine Hirst

Research Question and Hypothesis

How often do Earthquakes happen?

Is there a pattern to the occurrence of earthquakes?

Hypothesis: Earthquakes occur at the boundaries of plates due to their interactions determined by plate tectonics.

Standards

3.a. Students will know that earthquakes occur at plate boundaries

3.c. Students will know the principal structures that form at each plate boundaries

3.e. Students will know the causes of earthquakes and the scales used to measure them

Experimental Design

Students will be tracking and mapping earthquakes over a a three week period.

Magnitude will be indicated by color.

At the conclusion of the study, students will enter their data into a survey and drop into Batch Geo in order to observe patterns.

Series

Frequency of earthquakes over given period of time throughout Earth

Materials

Internet

Earthquake map

Procedures

1. students will track 3 earthquakes per class meeting and mark on map by magnitude.

2. Students will track date, location and magnitude for each quake

3. Earthquakes will be tracked for three weeks, totaling 7 class periods.

Sample data and graphs

.

Analysis & Conclusions

Photos & Movies

References

USGS

West Ranch Earth Science

Batch Geo