Creating A Seismograph Lab

Guiding Question: Can you design and build a seismograph that can record the movements of simulated earthquakes?

Hypothesis: I think that we will be able to design a seismograph, using the materials we have available in the classroom and on the balcony, and that it will work successfully.

Materials:

· Wire

· Chair

· Long piece of wood

· Shorter piece of wood

· Two nails

· Paper

· Scissors

· Tape

· Markers

· Table

· Play dough

· Hammer

Procedure:

1. Attach your small piece of wood to the top of your big piece of wood, using two nails for stability and a hammer. Then, lean your construction on a chair, on top of the table you are working on.

2. Take a marker and take its cap off and put it on top of it. Take your wire and tape it to the non- draw-able side of the marker.

3. Attach your wire(which is taped to the marker) to your wood construction. It should be taped to the smaller piece of wood, at the very tip. Make it so that the tip of the marker is in contact with the table surface. See picture below:

4. Attach the play dough to the point where the wire and the pen meet. Make sure the pen is still exactly in line with the floor. The play dough should make the pen heavier and give it more stability. See picture below:

5. You have now completed building your seismograph! Now, you have to make your own earthquake. Have one person put a piece of paper right underneath the markers tip. This should leave a dot on the piece of paper. First, do a trial only pulling the piece of paper under the marker. This should leave you with a somewhat straight line.

6. Now, have another trial. Get another piece of paper, and again put it right underneath the marker. This time, while one person slides and pulls the paper slowly through underneath the marker, the other person shakes the table. Try shaking the table lightly at first, and then get more violent.

7. Do this two more times, so that you have three trials in total.

8. You are now done building a seismograph, creating your own seismogram and making your own seismic waves!

Data:

Data Analysis:

Looking at my data, I can see that it took a long time for us to build a seismograph with successful results. It took a lot of trials, and many changes to our original sketches. We were eventually able to tell that the earthquakes with more powerful waves had longer lines on the seismogram. They would also be the earthquakes causing more damage, since when we shook the table the chair fell off. The smaller earthquakes would be the smaller squiggly lines on the seismogram, which we created by rocking the table slightly back and forth. The straight line would be when the table wasn't moving, or when there is no earthquake. That's because there are no vibrations, so nothing is causing the table to move to make the paper go back and forth.

Conclusion:

This lab has taught me not only how to build a seismograph, but also how to record information and how to tell the difference in large seismic activity and small seismic activity looking at seismograms. The small squiggly lines represent the smaller earthquakes. The larger, longer lines with more amplitude are the large earthquakes causing a lot of damage. I have learned that squiggly lines actually mean something, and that when a line isn’t squiggly it means that it’s not moving, or moving very little.We made a number of changes as we went along. A major change we made was when we made the wire longer so that it touched the floor, instead of having it dangling in mid- air drawing squiggly, unattached lines on a toilet paper roll. This made our seismograph more stable. It made it easier for the marker to draw consistently and not only random dots and squiggles all over the page. Another change we made was when we had Mrs. M hold the whole structure, making it stand up straight instead of leaning on the chair, and stopping it from shaking when the table shook. We also experimented a lot with the play dough, and used it as a weight on the pen but also as a marker for the toilet paper roll. When we used it as a weight for the wire and marker it was also hard to make it exactly balanced, and not make it tilt the pen to one side making it unable to reach the floor exactly. We had to get the laws of gravity exactly right. One more problem Monica and I had while we were doing our tests was that we had to hold the marker and the wire straight, to keep it from dangling, like it did when the table moved. We fixed this by having another wire to hold the marker straight, like a barrier. This was also when we added more play dough to the wire so that it was heavier and dangled less(gravity). All of these changes helped us create the successful seismograph. From notes in section 2 and talking in class, Monica and I made our first sketch of the seismograph. Off course, we had to change it a lot along the way, but the basic design came from there. Also, from the notes we took I learned what a seismograph was, how you used it and how to read seismograms, so they were probably the most important information we collected in this project. This lab has helped me understand seismographs and how they are used around the world, and how scientists study and read seismograms. This is information that will probably come to use in future life, and next time there's an earthquake nearby I can always make a handmade seismograph and measure it!

Further Inquiry:

If I were to do this lab again I might try it without using wood, and maybe create my seismograph from a chair or cardboard, or perhaps even attach it to the wall. I would also like to try a test in which I create two seismographs, only that one is with wire and the other one with loose string. I kind of need to visualize how the two would be different, since I don’t really see how the wire is better than the string. One limitation we had was the amount of wood. We needed three pieces, but we only had two available on the terrace. This lead to us modifying our sketch, and instead of having a piece of wood to rest the seismogram on we had it on a table instead and used a chair for support. This worked, and was probably just as efficient. With seismographs we can detect movements in the earth and measure earthquakes. When we are able to measure earthquakes, we might notice patterns in earthquakes located in a certain area, and be able to predict how powerful the earthquakes will occur. This could help people prepare for earthquakes, and even save lives. Seismographs also help us compare earthquakes all around the world, and help us understand the natural disasters surrounding us in everyday life.