Intern’s passion for seismology began with an IRIS school seismograph

Amanda Livers’ interest in geology and earthquakes began in middle school. When choosing a topic for the science fair Amanda found IRIS’s Seismographs in Schools website and convinced her 8th grade science teacher that they should apply.  Their joint application resulted in Sidney Middle School (Sidney, MT) receiving an AS-1 seismograph.   

Over the following year, Amanda installed the seismograph and began learning to use the software and interpret the data. She gave many presentations on the seismograph and what it could record to the other science classes in her district. She also used the AS-1 to compare the seismic sensitivity of the AS-1 and a homemade seismograph that she constructed. This investigation project won third place in the Middle School Earth Sciences Division at the Montana State Science Fair and received additional recognition as the University of Montana Geology awardee. 

Amanda’s initial interests blossomed through undergraduate coursework in physics and geology, and ultimately led her back to IRIS through the Undergraduate Internship Program. During the summer of 2012, Dr. John Hole mentored Amanda as she worked with data from Salton Seismic Imaging Project.  Amanda is currently pursuing an advanced degree in near-surface geophysics at the University of Kansas. 

Bringing this experience full circle, Amanda recently had an opportunity to return to the middle school she attended and talk to all the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science classes. Her presentation on seismology used a number of the educational videos IRIS has created and even showed the students how their AS-1 seismometer worked. Amanda found the experience “neat to tell them how I used the AS-1 seismometer for a science project when I was their age, and now I am in graduate school for geophysics studying seismology!”

2012 Interns’ interest for seismology started with a school seismograph in middle school (left), led her to IRIS for an internship with the IDOR experiment (center), and ultimately back to middle school to discuss her experience as a graduate students in near-surface geophysics (right).