The Purdue University Student Chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) is reaching out to local schools to teach students about earthquakes and their impact on civil engineering. A team of Purdue EERI chapter students visited the William H. Harrison High School in West Lafayette on March 21st and March 23rd to introduce the basics on earthquakes and how engineers design buildings in seismic areas around the world to Mr. Craig Smiley’s Advanced Placement Physics class. After the lecture the students spent a day creating their own “seismically designed buildings” out of spaghetti, gum drops and marshmallows to be tested on a shake table built by the EERI Chapter Student officers. The table simulates a simplified harmonic ground motion, as experienced during an earthquake. The table has been specifically designed for these outreach programs throughout the primary and high schools in the West Lafayette/Lafayette area.

William H. Harrison High School Students pose with their “seismically designed buildings”

The Harrison High School students tested their structures on the shake table.  Their designs were scored based on the weight of their structure versus the maximum weight the structure could carry successfully while their structure was experiencing base movement from the shake table.

Purdue University EERI Student Chapter President Erica Fischer and Treasurer Jeffrey Dowgala test the students' structures on the shake table

The Purdue Student Chapter of EERI has been involved in many different activities this school year. The chapter brought in a variety of technical speakers, sponsored lectures that were webcast live, and developed different outreach programs. The chapter collected over 150 engineering textbooks to send to the State University in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as well as the first High School Outreach program performed last week. The chapter will be hosting a day-long seminar to train students in SAP2000 and CSiBridge software in early April.  The chapter will be hosting three internationally renowned earthquake engineers before the end of the Spring 2012 semester.

To see more about what is going on at the Purdue University EERI Student Chapter, and to join them if you like, check out their website at https://engineering.purdue.edu/CE/EERI.