Make Your Own Seismograph

• Medium-sized cardboard box
• Paper or plastic cup
• String
• Marker
• Scissors
• Paper, or a very long printed receipt from a store
• Tape
• Coins, marbles, small rocks, or other small, heavy objects to use as weights
• Another person to help
• How to Make a Seismograph video (2m; English and Spanish versions)
• Build Your Own Seismograph Student Build Instructions 

Scientists study earthquakes so they can understand them better and hopefully one day predict them and save thousands of lives. A seismograph allows scientists to record earthquakes and measure their strength.

Earthquakes happen all the time, but most of them are so small that we can’t feel them, and they do not cause any damage. Large earthquakes, however, can be quite catastrophic—destroying buildings and causing significant damage to property and resulting in loss of life.

An earthquake’s strength is measured on the Richter scale. The Richter scale goes from 1 to 10. Each increase of 1 on the Richter scale means the earthquake is actually 10 times more powerful (e.g., a 2.0 earthquake is 10 times stronger than a 1.0 earthquake, not twice as strong). As of 2019, the strongest earthquake ever recorded measured 9.5 on the Richter scale.

Student Challenge

In this activity students build a re-creation of the original seismograph, an instrument that used a marker and paper strip to record earthquake tremors.

Success Criteria

• Explain how traditional seismographs worked, and the ways in which modern-day designs are different.
• Demonstrate the ability to make a working model of the historical design.
• Understand the key difference between the two models: the original designs were largely mechanical while their present-day counterparts transfer movement data  digitally.

1. Familiarize students with how seismographs work and let them know that they will use everyday materials to build their own seismographs. Organize students into groups and distribute a copy of the Build Your Own Seismograph Instructions student handout to each group.
2. Review the building instructions. If you want to build on the written instructions, play the brief How to Make a Seismograph video (2m) that illustrates the building process. 
3. Inform students that the seismographs they will be building represent the historical design of the very first instruments. Walk around the room as group’s build their devices and help any groups that might need assistance.
4. Once the seismographs have been built and tested, bring students together to share results. Can students tell how hard the box was shaking based on the line? Can they tell when the box was not shaking at all?
5. To conclude the activity, discuss the differences between the original and present-day design of the instrument:

• • Traditional machines (seismographs): Original designs for measuring tectonic movement worked mechanically: A heavy weight with a writing instrument at one end hung from a rigid frame connected to the ground; this frame remained steadfast while the surface on which the paper sat moved in concert with Earth’s plate movements.
  • Present-day instruments (seismometers): Most modern earthquake monitors record the movement of the Earth digitally, or output the data as a seismogram, the name for a printed version of the wavelengths created by a tremor. Today’s instruments are so sensitive that the wavelengths they record are so small that they need to be amplified for study. These machines are known as seismometers.