Earthquake Lab lesson plans
Each one is a class period with everything to run it: a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets. Students need no account, and a free class saves their work.
Earthquake Lab: Two Waves, One Gap
Students draw a fault on a map and break it. Two waves leave the break together, the fast P wave and the slower S wave, and three seismograph stations record them. The farther the station, the bigger the gap between the two arrivals. Students move the stations, measure the gaps, and find the rule: about one second of gap for every 8 kilometers.
FreeEarthquake Lab: Find the Epicenter
A quake is hidden, and three seismograms are all students get. They mark where the P and S waves arrive, subtract to get the gap, read each distance off a travel-time chart, and set a compass to draw a circle round each station. Where the three circles cross is the epicenter. The app checks the answer and says which step went wrong, and every student gets their own quake.
FreeEarthquake Lab: Seconds of Warning
Students break a magnitude 6.5 quake and open The towns: one magnitude for the quake, but a different shaking for each town, and seconds of warning for the towns far enough away. The alert goes out once the nearest station feels the fast P wave, ahead of the strong S wave. Students move a station to give more towns warning, then break a fault under the sea and watch a tsunami cross it in minutes.
FreeEarthquake Lab: Where Do Earthquakes Happen?
Students play a hundred years of earthquakes onto a map, one dot each, and look for the pattern. The dots are not spread evenly: they line up along a few faults, and small quakes far outnumber big ones. Students count them, draw a fault along one line and break it, and explain what a map of past quakes lets scientists forecast, and what it cannot.