Abstract:

Seismology is a multidisciplinary research domain known as a blend of theoretical and applied research in Earth science and physics, dealing mainly with fundamental study of earthquakes, seismic waves but also prospecting and recovery of natural resources. Seismology also made possible to look into the deep inaccessible interior of the Earth at depths of up to thousands of kilometers and to extract information about the earthquake parameters and wave propagation and use it to evaluate seismic hazard to buildings, power plants and other infrastructure. And not known by many, seismology was and is used to monitor clandestine nuclear explosions and thus bring a contribution to maintain peace on earth.

All the mentions above make seismology a perfect topic to communicate the very essence of science, to raise the enthusiasm and excitement of students for scientific discoveries and to show the importance of understanding the complexity of our planet - all this knowledge contributing to the building of a more resilient society.

Even if, at a first glance, all behind seismology seems to be a quite complicated research, in fact, many fundamental theories and facts can be comprehended from the very first educational grades. That is why, looking backwards, seismology also provides opportunities to teach many science, math and technology concepts and skills to learners of all ages. Unfortunately, as studies have shown, geoscience topics get less and less within the science curriculum, only briefly into geography courses. A change can come from seismology projects that aim to influence the future development of the science curriculum by proving the use of earthquakes and seismology in learning school physics, math and geography.

Such a pilot project - entitled Romanian Educational Seismic Network (ROEDUSEIS) is under implementation for 5 years in more than ten Romanian high schools. Beyond the common objectives and advantages that such a project brought to participating schools (seismometer in the classroom, real time seismic data viewing and processing), we succeed to propose an interdisciplinary school choice discipline (physics-geography-ICT), that run in five 11th grade classes, having as a centralizing theme seismology. It comprise lessons on force, friction, wave propagation, and engineering design as well as plate tectonics and driving forces. The role of technology in accessing, processing and using information is underlined through the use of dedicated educational software for detecting, locating and analyzing explosions and earthquakes.

For all the other schools we embedded the lessons in existing schools topics rather than creating a new module. In fact seismology offers unique opportunities to enrich science and physics curriculum and finding creative teachers that are able to deliver innovative lessons improve the chances that students become more interested in science even as a future career path. And thus is a natural transition to another clearly state objective of a seismology education project: to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers guidance for students, to help them make informed post-16 subject choices.

Keywords:

STEM, seismology, science education, curiculum.