Rachel A. Dunn and Dr. Ron A. Harris, Geology
The purpose of this ORCA project was to provide guidelines specific to Utah Valley schools to protect students from seismic hazards along the Wasatch fault. In the proposal I stated that “At least 74% of the schools in Provo are not built to seismic code” (Robinson and Harris, 2009). While unfortunately in the last year this project has not changed these statistics, I have meet a number of people who are striving to change them and we have made children in the Provo area more prepared. Most of the objectives of the project have been accomplished.
The largest obstacle of the project has been gaining access into the classrooms. In the early stages I attempted to gain access by contacting teachers, principles, school board members, and district authorities but they would only tell me contact someone else or more often never respond. It appeared that the project would never succeed.
The key for any success I have achieved over the last year on this project is due to the networking, support and hard work of three key individuals. The first is my mentor Dr. Harris, he provided me several contacts and access to functions that allowed the project to gain awareness, support, and help. The second individual who has been irreplaceable is Barry Welliver. Barry Welliver is a structural engineer in Draper. He has devoted his life to earthquake mitigation and presented me with innumerable pages of information to make the project the most informed possible. In addition to information he also connected us with the Utah Siesmic Safety Commission (U.S.S.C.) in Salt Lake City. Finally the person who helped throughout this entire project the most has been Emily Esplin. She has been a constant support by meeting with me weekly, attending every lecture and assisting in research. I feel of all the knowledge I have learned in this project the skills of leading, delegating, and collaboration have been the most beneficial.
With the assistance and support of these individuals the project began to take off. The original project plans overshot what was feasible, but we have almost completed work in one school and have set up plans with other schools to train for earthquake safety in the upcoming year. Amelia Earhart Elementary in Provo Utah gave us half an hour per classroom which we split into two parts. The first 15 minutes we would interact with the students evaluating their awareness of earthquakes, demonstrating earthquake dynamics with spring models, look at local geology to see evidence of earthquakes, dispel earthquake myths, and answer students’ questions. The last fifteen minutes we would look around the classroom to find items that could be dangerous in an earthquake. We brought my turtle and would show how the turtle hides in his shell similarly to how they need to curl up in and earthquake. With the students we identified the best and closest places to go for cover and practiced duck, cover and hold. This went on over a period of several weeks until we had covered every classroom. Afterwards Emily and I reviewed the school’s emergency preparedness plan helping to fill anything they may have missed using plans from Washington and California as guidelines. We have meet with the teachers and set up times to make corrections to the possible dangers we saw in the classroom that they were not able to fix alone.
During this first year of the project we have seen success. Principal Cox informed us that he was very pleased with the project and had heard very good reviews from both teachers and parents. They were pleased the students were receiving information from experts and learning to be aware and prepared. In the days and weeks following our working with students they would bring up concerns and point out potentially dangerous objects which demonstrated they had learned what we taught and were applying it. The teachers commented that they learned important information we covered from securing objects to realizing that they shouldn’t go to doorways.
Our project is adapted to each individual school and grade level. In addition to identifying risks in each classroom two other objective of the project were to plot maps of schools in Provo School District against maps of liquefaction and to apply school safety directions by the U.S.S.C.. It turns out the Provo fire department already has a liquefaction map with all the schools. As to the U.S.S.C., this project has been an amazing opportunity to allow me to meet members of the commission, attend meeting at the state capitol, and even present the project at one of the meetings. It has been a privilege meeting people as passionate about earthquake awareness and preparation as me. It has also been beneficial to receive up to date information from the earthquake preparedness community.
I will be leaving on a mission this next semester but the roots have been planted and the project is set to continue on through the next year helping to prepare students in Provo so that when the earthquake strikes they will be ready.