MAE Center Participates in Missouri Earthquake Awareness Week Activities

On February 3, 2007, the MAE Center participated in the Earthquake Awareness Day event that was held at the St. Louis Science Center. The event featured hands-on exhibits, speakers, maps and displays for children and their parents. The MAE Center provided informational material on how the average household could prepare for an earthquake, the MAE Center, and operated a shake table as part of its hands-on exhibit. Children were allowed to construct models of buildings using K'nex which they later placed on the shake table to test if their models could withstand the forces from the shake table's simulated earthquakes. Students from Washington University, a MAE Center Core Institution, assisted MAE Center personnel with the exhibit and operated the shake table. Figure 1 shows Washington University graduate student Wally Barnawi, and two Earthquake Day participants, just prior to testing the participants' model.