ABSTRACT:

A SEISMIC WG AT A GERMAN HIGH SCHOOL: GOALS AND WEB-PRODUCTS U. Arndt (Städt. St.-Michael-Gymnasium, Walter-Scheibler-Str. 51, D-52156 Monschau, Germany, email:seicmic@micha.ac.uunet.de), P. BORMANN (GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Germany, email: course@gfz-potsdam.de), S. Schork and M. Jansen (address as for Arndt) In 1993 Prof. Guust Nolet and Prof. Robert Phinney of Princeton University initiated the Princeton Earth Physics Project (PEPP) aimed at introducing modern methods of data acquisition and analysis to a broader public and proposed seismology as a first subject. Meanwhile´, cheap commercial seismographs are operating at 65 sites in US high schools and various educational resources are offered on the PEPP Web site (http://lasker.princeton.edu/education/html). Similar initiatives followed in France and Italy with EduSeis (e.g. http://luxgea5.na.infu.it/) and a school yard in seismology in Norwey (see http://orfeus.knmi.nl/newsletter/vol2no3/index.html). A related but somewhat different approach was started in 1994 at the St.-Michael-Gymnasium in Monschau in the Eifel region, Germany. There a school working group, after introductory lectures and, in close consultation with German seismologists, built within the movement "Youth researchers" its own 3-component seismometer station and wrote the software for remote access and data retrieval. Additionally, they constructed with simple means, using readily purchasable cheap components, a portable educational seismograph. It can easily be reproduced by other interested pupils on the basis of the documentation provided. They also put an extended, easy to read and stimulating article on the web (http://www.mgm.monschau.de/seismic). It explains the natural causes, main phenomena and possible catastrophic consequences of earthquakes, the Earth´s structure, wave propagation, the seismograms as messengers of this travel through the Earth, the principles of functioning and design of a seismograph, signal processing and seismogram analysis and finally, how to use the understanding of seismometry in school physics education on "Oscillations and Waves". The paper provides an on-line demonstration of this web site and invites discussion and exchange on this interesting effort in education and outreach.

Presentation Style	Oral
Special requirements (Is the paper presented by a student?)	No