Making Waves: Seismic Waves Activities and Demonstrations

The nature and propagation of seismic waves are fundamental concepts necessary for understanding the exploration of Earth's interior structure and properties, plate tectonics, earthquakes, and seismic hazards. Investigating seismic waves is also an engaging approach to learning basic principles of the physics of waves and wave propagation. Several effective educational activities and demonstrations are available for teaching about seismic waves, including the stretching of a spring to demonstrate elasticity; slinky wave propagation activities for compressional, shear, Rayleigh and Love waves; the human wave activity to demonstrate P- and S- waves in solids and liquids; waves in water in a simple wave tank; seismic wave computer animations; simple shake table demonstrations of model building responses to seismic waves to illustrate earthquake damage to structures; processing and analysis of seismograms using free and easy to use software; and seismic wave simulation software for viewing wave propagation in a spherical Earth. The use of multiple methods for teaching about seismic waves is useful because it provides reinforcement of the fundamental concepts, is adaptable to variable classroom situations and diverse learning styles, and allows one or more methods to be used for authentic assessment. The methods described here have been used effectively with a broad range of audiences, including K-12 students and teachers, undergraduate students in introductory geosciences courses, and geosciences majors.