Hands-on Demonstrations

These hands-on demonstrations can be used for informal and formal group events such as school visits, museum presentations, science days, or for at-home exploration.

Hands-on demonstrations are an effective way for novice learners, whether they are students, public, or museum visitors, to experience geoscience processes. UNAVCO and community members have developed hands-on demonstrations of a variety of geophysical processes highlighting the geodetic techniques used to measure these processes. These demonstrations illustrate how observations of changes at the Earth’s surface can be observed, quantified, and inform us about forces within the Earth that we can’t see. They also emphasize the societal impact of research related to each Earth process.

• Science with Flubber: Glacial Isostasy

  Using two sets of flubber, one representing the Earth and one representing a glacier, demonstrate how the crust sinks and rebounds to the weight of a glacier, and how this motion can be measured using GPS.

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• Measure a Changing Volcano

  This hands-on demonstration illustrates how GPS can be used to measure the inflation and deflation of a volcano, and how rocks at the summit weaken and crack to form a crater or caldera.

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• Groundwater and Earthquakes

  Simulate how hydrologic changes affect seismicity and explore how the water system and earthquake patterns on a fault can be related.

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• Tsunami Early Warning

  Illustrate how geodetic instruments can be used to warn people of an approaching tsunami. This is also a fun game where participants have to save the animals from the incoming water!

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• Earthquake Early Warning

  This interactive activity is great for large audiences and demonstrates how an earthquake early warning system works and the importance of them to hospitals, transportation services, and emergency management.

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• Make Tectonic Plates Converge

  With springs and a tectonic map of the Pacific Northwest, learn about plate convergence and how this motion is detected with GPS instruments.

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• Pinpoint Location with GPS: How GPS Works

  Using strings, bubble gum, and a gumdrop GPS, explore how GPS work to pinpoint a location on Earth.

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• Measure Ground Motion with GPS: How GPS Works

  With printed handouts of GPS velocity vectors and gumdrop GPS models, discover how GPS work to measure ground motion of our Earth.

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Last modified: 2020-01-16  17:23:31  America/Denver