I N T R O D U C T I O N
4
CanBuildingsBeMadeSafer?
This unit is designed to allow students to construct an
understanding of how the shaking of the ground
during an earthquake causes damage to buildings and
how buildings can be made better able to withstand
this shaking. The activities and experiments of this
unit culminate in an exciting performance assessment.
Like the activities in Unit 1, these require considerable
teacher preparation and will be enhanced by the widest
possible involvement of community members outside
the classroom.
Lesson 1, Building Fun, is designed as an attention-
grabber, allowing students to discover the physical
properties of some materials, practice working
together, and most of all, have fun while establishing
the need for constraints in building performance
requirements. Students are given Styrofoam strips and
a variety of connection devices and asked to build a
stable structure of any kind.
Lesson 2 provides students with real experience in
reinforcing or bracing a wall to carry the horizontal
loads of an earthquake. They learn three engineering
techniques and experiment with them on a model wall.
Students develop the ability to make load path
diagrams to predict and describe how static and
dynamic forces travel though a wall.
Lesson 3, Building Oscillation Seismic Simulation, or
BOSS, is an opportunity for students to explore the
phenomenon of resonance while performing a
scientific experiment that employs mathematical
skills. The students are intrigued by a discrepant event
involving the BOSS Model and are then set to work
experimenting with the natural frequencies of
structures. They experience how structures behave
dynamically during an earthquake.
Lesson 4, Earthquake in a Box, engages students in
constructing and using an instrument similar to one
scientists use to model the impact of earthquake
shaking. The materials and the procedure are both
uncomplicated. This activity reinforces the major role
of horizontal (lateral) forces in an earthquake and the
importance of designing structures to withstand them.
In Lesson 5, The Building Challenge, students apply
what they have learned in the first four activities. They
are challenged to build a Styrofoam structure that can
sustain the maximum horizontal load possible. The
students’ performance in this building contest is an
authentic assessment of the ideas developed in Unit 4.
Take time to do all the activities in this unit with your
class. They are all important, not only because this unit
is more closely integrated than the other units, but also
because it deals with an aspect of earthquake safety
that is usually not treated elsewhere in high school and
junior high learning materials. It will kindle your
students’ enthusiasm for science, architecture, and
engineering.
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