Earthquake School in the Cloud: Citizen Seismologists in Taiwan

Abstract

It is hoped that through the cultivation of a crew of volunteer citizen seismologists, public involvement could be encouraged and the discovery and inquiry into earthquake knowledge could be promoted. These volunteers can contribute to data collection, analysis, and reporting, and have the potential to greatly improve the emergency response to earthquakes. The Citizen Seismologists in Taiwan Project (CSTaiwan) is designed to elevate the quality of earthquake science education by incorporating earthquake and tsunami stories and educational earthquake games into traditional school curricula. The project aims to build a cloud-based computing service incorporating an earthquake school (i.e., a website for online learning) where teachers can easily teach their students about earthquakes and children can learn about earthquakes in a fun environment. Here we demonstrate how students perform P -a ndS-wave picking and measure seismic intensity through an interactive learning platform, how scientists and school teachers work together, and how we create a near-realtime earthquake games competition to facilitate continuous learning while making earthquake science fun. We also develop 49 questions associated with participants’ preknowledge, attitude, and skills in earthquake sciences, called Citizen Seismological Literacy (CSL). The CSL model may serve as an example to quantify citizen’s background in earthquake sciences and could be applied as a framework for seismologists around the world who wish to approach the public for educational purposes, while considering promoting the public’s seismologic literacy.