High schools to monitor earthquakes
High school students are to be incorporated into the island’s earthquake monitoring system with the launch on June 23 of the Jamaican Educational Seismic Network (JAESN) at Ardenne High School in Kingston.
Ardenne is home to the first seismograph station under the project. Others are to be installed at five other schools — Jamaica College, Immaculate Conception High, Hillel Academy and the American International School of Kingston, all in St Andrew; and Mount Alvernia High in St James.
The stations will allow students, teachers and community members to get details about the force and duration of earthquakes as they occur with a view to improving the scientific understanding of earthquake risk, and promoting preparedness and community resilience.
JAESN is being established as part of the global Seismographs in Schools Programme which is managed by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology in the United States. It is a collaboration with the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Earthquake Unit and geoscientist and Fulbright Core Scholar Dr Katherine Ellins.
“The way this would work,” said Ellins, “is that students who participate in JAESN are then going to take the knowledge that they have gained, go back, share that with their parents and families and with their communities.”
The network involves learners in gathering, analysing and sharing earthquake event data from their seismograph stations with other network institutions. It also connects high school science classrooms to researchers at UWI by encouraging collaboration on local research in seismology and related geo-hazards.
Dr Ellins said the hope is for JAESN to be a model for a Caribbean-wide network.
Head of UWI’s Department of Geography and Geology, Professor Simon Mitchell, noted that Jamaica experiences between 80 and 120 small earthquakes annually and “will undoubtedly have a big earthquake”.
“Therefore, citizens ought to be prepared, including students, who need to be aware of what to do in the event of an earthquake. It is very fitting that we have the JAESN network being set up because it shows the interest and importance people are placing on making Jamaica a safer place,” he said.
