School’s earthquake project is going global

Fulneck School in Pudsey is working with three schools, in the south of England, Italy and France to develop low cost, reliable seismometers to be used by schools in Kenya.

Pupils in years ten and 11 at the independent school are working on the project. Once developed, these will be linked to Raspberry Pi computers and programmed to record seismic activity in the African country, with the results fed back to the four European schools.

It is part of an ongoing eathquake measuring project being run by Fulneck’s physics department which has received European Union funding from the EU’s Erasmus + programme.

This money is allowing Fulneck to link up with three other schools in the UK, France and Italy over the next two years.

During this period staff and students will look at how using practical measurements of earthquakes can be used to inspire pupils in lessons. Fulneck School Principal Debora Newman said: “This is incredibly exciting news for our physics department and I’m thrilled that Fulneck School is helping lead the way in seismic recordings.

“Science is a very important subject and one that we are keen to make both interesting and relevant to our pupils. Many go on to study the subject in the A-Levels.” Fulneck School has a long-standing track record of monitoring earthquakes as part of the UK Seismology School Project run by the British Geological Survey and Leeds University.

Paul Denton, manager of the UK School Seismology project said: “Research Geoscientists have always co-operated across national boundaries and it is great to see similar opportunities being offered to students.”