Earthquake Lesson finds Epicenter at George Fischer Middle School

It was a lesson in shaking, rattling, and rolling for Earth Science students in Tracy Brusie’s classes at George Fischer Middle School during a unit on earthquakes.

In a recent class lab, students used their geology skills and compasses to interpret seismographs from three separate locations, finding the arrival times of primary waves (p-waves) and secondary waves (s-waves). These waves are caused by the earth and rock breaking under stress and strain, which causes the ground to shake during an earthquake. Using this information, they were able to find the earthquake's epicenter.

The lab was a capstone to a week dedicated to earthquakes in class. At the beginning of the week, the students connected virtually with Dr. Wendy Bohon, an earthquake geologist who works for NASA at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. NASA employs more than 1,200 earth scientists, the largest number in the world at one location, at Goddard Space Flight Center.

During the virtual session, Bohon shared her career path, which began as a theatre major in college, with a secondary major in geology and saw her become a professional actor for several years. After living through the Hector Mine earthquake in Southern California in 1999 she decided to shift her career into geology.

When we think of NASA, we often think about space and other planets, but a significant amount of research NASA oversees focuses on Earth. Bohon spoke in-depth about her role at NASA and how her department is observing and measuring how the ground is changing over time. Her team even used the same technology used to map the surface of Mars to map parts of the Himalayan Mountains that are inaccessible.

Other things that NASA earth scientists are studying include landslides, major floods, the melting of sea ice and the rising sea level, the health of the oceans and more – all things happening here on Earth.

“The earth is not just one thing. It is all these different systems, and they all impact each other,” said Bohon. “The atmosphere and rain impact the ground. I study the ground, so the rain matters to me. It can impact exactly what the GPS says, and it can impact how we are observing what is there. There are a lot of different reasons why we need to have all kinds of different people working on different technology to understand the integrated earth system.”

She reminded students that there is a place in science for people with many different interests outside of the traditional laboratory setting, especially computer programming and modeling.

“Science is a good place for you,” said Bohon. “You have to be creative to figure out the different ways to use the data. We need programmers and people who understand how to manipulate and use the data.”

“There are a lot of different things that you can do in science that are not just a scientist in a lab coat in a laboratory. There is that, but there are many other options.”