Earthquakes Living Lab: Designing for Disaster
An earthquake caused this school in El Salvador to collapse. This sign on a café in Sausalito, CA, warns of the danger of unreinforced masonry buildings.Copyright (top) 2004 U.S. AID via Wikimedia Commons; (bottom) 2013 Denise W. Carlson. Used with permission. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egepg1.jpg
Students learn about factors that engineers take into consideration when designing buildings for earthquake-prone regions. Using online resources available through the Earthquakes Living Lab, students explore the consequences of subsurface ground type and building height on seismic destruction. Working in pairs, students think like engineers to apply what they have learned to sketches of their own building designs intended to withstand strong-magnitude earthquakes. A worksheet serves as a student guide for the activity.
Engineers often use data collected from measurement tools to analyze powerful events such as earthquakes. From seismographs, engineers and researchers determine the strength or magnitudes of earthquakes, from which they can make predictions. The magnitude and type of shaking affects how structures respond. Engineers must consider earthquake potential when designing new structures or evaluating the safety of existing structures. Most structures have a foundation, or a method for supporting the structure in the ground. To design adequate foundations, engineers must understand the properties of the materials on which they are building, which includes studying the geology of the Earth. For large construction projects, especially those near faults and coastlines, engineers consider the effects of plate tectonics and the Earth's structure. If one tectonic plate suddenly slips with respect to another plate, it can trigger a massive earthquake and/or tsunami.
Scientists and engineers around the globe gather data through observation and experimentation and use it to describe and understand how the world works. The Earthquakes Living Lab gives students the chance to track earthquakes across the planet and examine where, why and how they are occurring. Using the real-world data in the living lab enables students and teachers to practice analyzing data to solve problems and answer questions, in much the same way that scientists and engineers do every day.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Describe examples of the types of damage caused by earthquakes.
- Describe how engineers design buildings to resist earthquakes.
- Examine what subsurface materials are most and least likely to result in significant damage from earthquakes.