Summer 2013: Day 5

Dat Duthinh talking about earthquakes.

It's earthquake day! Dat Duthinh came in today to talk about earthquakes and why building behave the way they do. He did a demonstration with metal rods of different lengths topped with tennis balls. Contrary to what we expected, the largest tower didn't shake the most, the shorter one did. However, when he changed the frequency with which he was shaking the demonstration, he could choose which building was swayed the most. He also passed around a globe that was segmented on the faults. It was really neat.

Looking at the fault line globe.

Building trusses.

Building the shear walls.

Demonstrations

We also spent some time building a lot of earthquake demos. We built I-beams, shear walls, jello buildings, and bridge trusses. It was amazing how quickly it all came together. They also had pressure blocks and the tennis ball demos for everyone. It provided great ideas for ways to teach about earthquakes.

With Carl Williams in the industrial elevator.

After lunch, Carl Williams took a group on the tour to see the kilogram artifact used at NIST. This is one of the daughters of the original artifact kept in France. The masses are checked to make sure they are within 14 micrograms of a pound. After getting back, the teachers had one-on-one meetings with scientists. It seemed like a really good experience for all the teachers.