Basics in seismology

Workshop goal:  Provide participants with a broad overview of the science of observational seismology, completed with hands on practical demonstrations illustrating some of the key physical principles

Target audience: secondary school teachers (physics or general science)

Topics approached in the workshop:  

  • The elastic rebound theory of earthquakes
  • Seismic wave properties (transverse and longitudinal)
  • How seismic waves travel through the earth
  • How seismometers work
  • Interpreting seismograms

Workshop Description:

There will be a short introduction to the activities through scientific lectures and educational projects presentations for the whole group, followed by a circus of practical activities which the participants can rotate around (spending 15 minutes at each activity).  Using dedicated software participants will learn how to use technique and tools for data acquisition and from the wealth of hands-on-activities will get new ideas for their science classes. 

Trainers:

Fatima Moujdi-Menauge, Jérémy Camponovo, Paul Denton, John Stevenson

Time allocated: 1h30min

Type of certification of attendance awarded Certificate of participation stating course title, location, dates, summary of content, number of hours (delivered before participants’ departure)

Follow-­‐up activities

  • Distance learning activities
  • Email contacts with trainers

It is hoped that participants:

  • Keep in touch each other and keep developing contacts with other participants of the course
  • Create materials to use them in their classrooms.

Other resources:

 

Ms Fatima Moujdi-Menauge
Prof. Paul Denton
Dr. Dragos Tataru
Dr. Bogdan Zaharia

Ms Fatima Moujdi-Menauge

Ms Fatima Moujdi-Menauge middle and high school biology and geology teachers for 16 years, prepare students for Science Diploma and also responsible for training other teachers to implement interdisciplinary scientific projects. Throughout the career she have carried out numerous scientific projects on a European and international scale

Prof. Paul Denton

Paul Denton has a BSc in Physics with Geophysics (Bath). During his studies he spent a sandwich year working at the (then new) iconic Schlumberger Cambridge Research “tent”. After graduating he spent two years working for Seismograph Service Ltd as a field seismologist with land acquisition crews in eastern Turkey and the western desert in Egypt.
In 1994 he joined the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester as an experimental officer supporting research and teaching activities in geophysics. Initially he worked with both time domain controlled source EM systems and seismic acquisition, supporting research activities in Cyprus, East Africa, Europe, North America and Asia. In 2000 he became the inaugaural manager of SEIS-UK, a national facility supporting the UK academic seismology community with a pool of high quality portable seismic acquisition systems obtained with a £2M JIF Consortium Grant.
In 2006 he shifted his focus to the less fieldwork-intensive field of outreach and education. With support from a NESTA teaching award he moved to the British Geological Survey and created the UK school seismology project. This develops and promotes educational activities for secondary school students and teachers to use observational seismology as an inspirational context for science learning. Since 2010 he has been leading international efforts in Europe and worldwide to share ideas and expertise in this field.

Dr. Dragos Tataru

Researcher at National Institute for Earth Physics, Romania. For the past four years he is leading the educational and outreach direction developed by NIEP. He has a strong background in seismology, he graduated Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, Bucharest (2004), with an MSc in Geophysics (2005) at the same Faculty and a PhD. in Physics (2009) at Faculty of Physics with a thesis about receiver function studies in Romania. He has more than 10 years of work experience in the seismology research field on topics as seismicity analysis, seismic velocity structure investigation using innovative techniques and array analyses. He is leading two important national educational project and he was involved in develop of several other education programmes aiming to develop teaching resources, school workshops and facilitates the delivery of teacher training workshops.

Dr. Bogdan Zaharia

Dr. Bogdan Zaharia – Researcher at National Institute for Earth Physics, Romania. He has more than 10 years of work experience in the seismology research field on topics as seismicity analysis, seismic velocity structure investigation using innovative techniques and array analyses. He graduated Faculty of Physics, Bucharest (2004), with an MSc in Physics (2006) and a PhD. in Physics (2012) at Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest with a thesis about Vrancea area local seismic tomography. For the past four years he was involved in one important national educational project in which he developed teaching resources, school workshops and facilitates the delivery of teacher training workshops.