EERI students shake up Roswell North third graders
Five members of the Georgia Tech chapter (Sujith Mangalathu, Farahnaz Soleimani, Jiqing Jiang, Pablo Vega and Parsa Banihashemi) of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute introduced more than 100 Atlanta-area third graders to structural engineering this week on October 3rd, 2014. They packed up a shake table and some model-building supplies and spent the day at Roswell North Elementary teaching about and demonstrating scientific inquiry, risk reduction, problem solving and troubleshooting in earthquake engineering research.
We have a STEAM initiative at Roswell North where we have dedicated time every day to have our students participate in activities that involve science, technology, engineering, arts and math. Georgia Tech single handedly came in and met these objectives in one 45-minute lesson that the students loved,” said teacher Melissa Trice. The lesson on earthquakes and building safe, stable architecture had our students engaged, and they were eager to use their critical thinking and problem solving skills. The students were able to get their hands on their own materials and design and build their own safe structures. Then the students placed their structures on the shake table … to see if their structure could withstand the movement of an earthquake. The students were excited to watch their real-world, hands-on activity come to life. Many great conversations were had once the students were back in the classroom.
EERI team at Roswell North Elementary School
EERI Outreach Activity on Fernbank Museum of Natural History
The Georgia Tech EERI Student Chapter participated in the Science day at hand (8th November 2014) on Fernbank Museum of Natural history. The visitation programs have been developed to stimulate interest in engineering, math, and science, and share lessons on the earthquake hazard, earthquake preparedness, and structural response. Demonstrations and discussion focused on increased awareness of the earthquake hazard in the Central and Southeastern US and an understanding of the response of structures to earthquakes. In addition to the lessons and discussion, students participated in a hands-on activity. The students built structures with K-nex pieces which were subjected to earthquake ground motions using a small scale demonstration shake table. Seven members of the Georgia Tech EERI chapter – Sujith Mangalathu, Edwin Lim, Lilian Wang, Jiqing Jiang, Parsa Banihashemi, Xiaobing and Ajay Saini – participated in the hands-on activities on that day.
Science on hand day at Fernbank Museum of natural history
Is there such a thing as an earthquake-proof building?
The Georgia Tech EERI Student Chapter has organized a community outreach program for Victory Creek Middle school on Cumming, Georgia. On November 14, 2014, two members of EERI chapter – Sujith Mangalathu and Farahnaz Soleimani – visited the 6th grade Science class. We gave a brief introduction to earthquakes and showed some photos of the damage that earthquakes can cause. We then followed this up with a discussion on earthquake (emergency) preparedness which was reinforced by showing a video that was produced by the USGS. A hands-on activity was then conducted where the kids could build a five story building out of K-nex. The buildings were subjected to the Kobe and Northridge ground motion records on a small shake table. Overall we believe we were very effective in creating interest in earthquake engineering, math and science.
EERI on Victory Creek Middle School, Cumming, GA