Thin­ner, denser blue foamies (ocean­ic crust), and thick­er, lighter yel­low ones (con­ti­nen­tal crust) all loaded up for the school out­reach!

First out­reach in Vic­to­ria, BC, Cana­da at Gor­don Head Mid­dle School with my col­league, Anna Diederichs. We did some fun plate tec­ton­ics demo (with the foamies)!
I designed this new pale­o­seis­mic activ­i­ty and games for Grade 3–4 stu­dents at Frank Hobbs Ele­men­tary School! The stu­dents were build­ing tsuna­mi sand lay­ers interbed­ded with fall­en trees (sticks), and soil accu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing the inter­seis­mic peri­od!
Tsuna­mi peel (Port Alberni, Van­cou­ver Island) from the Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey of Cana­da (Pacif­ic Geo­science Cen­tre), show­cased to the pub­lic at the Sci­ence Ren­dezvous event!
Plate tec­ton­ics demo at the Sid­ney Rotary Club, sim­ply done by using two scrub­bies! Thank you Sarah Jaye Oli­va for this idea! It is so effec­tive in show­ing the fric­tion between two plates!
I received this sur­prise from the Frank Hobbs Ele­men­tary School! Such a reward­ing expe­ri­ence. I keep this at my office to remind myself of the sparkles in the stu­dents’ eye and of my pas­sion in Sci­Comm!
Anoth­er plate tec­ton­ic demo at the Vic­to­ria Lap­idary and Min­er­al Soci­ety. This was my sec­ond time giv­ing a talk on the his­to­ry (includ­ing Oral Tra­di­tions from Indige­nous Peo­ples) of the Cas­ca­dia Sub­duc­tion Zone. I have shared my pre­sen­ta­tion with the com­mu­ni­ty here.
I start­ed build­ing a Quake­Cast­er mod­el (inspired by Ross Stein GSA lec­ture) with the help of Sarah Jaye Oli­va and sup­port from my super­vi­sor Edwin Nis­sen. It was first used at Mt. Dou­glas Sec­ondary School, to demon­strate that earth­quakes are unpre­dictable!
Safe­ty First Fair at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vic­to­ria. We shared our earth­quake-tsuna­mi research to the stu­dents and pub­lic. The research involved a wide range of sub­dis­ci­plines, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to geo­mor­phol­o­gy, pale­o­seis­mol­o­gy, geo­phys­i­cal meth­ods, geo­desy, and instru­men­tal seis­mol­o­gy.
My colleagues/faculty and I (Lucin­da Leonard, Sarah Jaye Oli­va) at the Safe­ty First Fair booth, with our slingy (anoth­er effec­tive item to demon­strate seis­mic waves) and a Rasp­ber­ry Pi seis­mome­ter!

For schools and com­mu­ni­ties on the south­ern Van­cou­ver Island, my research group and I are hap­py to give in-per­son pre­sen­ta­tions and do demon­stra­tions relat­ed to earth­quake and tsuna­mi haz­ards.
Please feel free to con­tact me if you have any ques­tions or are inter­est­ed! (:
Requests for online pre­sen­ta­tions are also wel­come!

Con­tact me

University of Victoria Speakers Bureau Program

Past out­reach pre­sen­ta­tion and activ­i­ty top­ics
“Can We Pre­dict Earth­quakes? Tales of the Cas­ca­dia Sub­duc­tion Zone”
“Plate Tec­ton­ics and Haz­ards of Van­cou­ver Island”
“What Can We Learn From the Dirt? Demon­stra­tion of Tsuna­mi Deposits”
“Liquefaction—Demonstration of Build­ing Struc­tures on Dif­fer­ent Soil Type using Plas­tic Cups and Sand”
“Tsuna­mi Haz­ards of Van­cou­ver Island”
“Earth­quake Shake­down!”

Schools and com­mu­ni­ties vis­it­ed
Burn­side Gorge Com­mu­ni­ty, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Age 50–80)
Mt. Dou­glas Sec­ondary School, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Grade 11–12)
Vic­to­ria Lap­idary and Min­er­al Soci­ety, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Gen­er­al pub­lic)
Sid­ney Rotary Club, Sid­ney, Van­cou­ver Island, Cana­da (Age 50–70)
Galiano Com­mu­ni­ty School, Galiano Island, Cana­da (Grade 4–6)
Probus Club of Dun­can, Dun­can, Van­cou­ver Island, Cana­da (Age 60–70)
Jour­ney Mid­dle School, Sooke, Van­cou­ver Island, Cana­da (Grade 7–8)
Cen­tral Mid­dle School, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Grade 7–8)
Colquitz Mid­dle School, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Grade 7–8)
Frank Hobbs Ele­men­tary School, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Grade 3–4)
Cloverdale Tra­di­tion­al School, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Grade 1–3, Vir­tu­al)
Gor­don Head Mid­dle School, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Grade 8)

Other public outreach events

Safe­ty First Fair earth­quake and tsuna­mi research out­reach, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vic­to­ria (Gen­er­al pub­lic)
Sci­ence Ren­dezvous Vic­to­ria sci­ence fes­ti­val, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vic­to­ria (Gen­er­al pub­lic)
Girl Guides of Cana­da out­reach, Van­cou­ver, Cana­da (Grade 4–5, Vir­tu­al)
Sci­ence Venture’s Vir­tu­al Sum­mer Camp, Van­cou­ver Island, Cana­da (Grade 1–9, Vir­tu­al)
Farmer’s Mar­ket earth­quake out­reach, Cor­val­lis, Ore­gon, Unit­ed States (Gen­er­al pub­lic)

Service and leadership

Ses­sion con­ven­er and pri­ma­ry chair at the Amer­i­can Geo­phys­i­cal Union Fall Meet­ing 2023, Ses­sion title: “Frac­ture Rough­ness Analy­sis and Influ­ence of Fault Struc­tur­al Matu­ri­ty on Earth­quake Behav­ior” (Decem­ber 11–15, 2023, San Fran­cis­co, Unit­ed States)
Ses­sion mod­er­a­tor at the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Earth­quake Cen­ter (SCEC) Work­shop on “Coor­di­nat­ing Post-Earth­quake Data Col­lec­tion” (Vir­tu­al; Jan­u­ary 12&14, 2022)
Co-teacher at the Uni­ver­si­ty 201 Pro­gram week­ly intro­duc­to­ry course on “Earth­quakes and Tsunamis”, Vic­to­ria, Cana­da (Vir­tu­al; Novem­ber 2021)

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