This proposal, titled "New Madrid Earthquake Project for Earth Science Teachers," is designed to improve earthquake education among earth science teachers from seven states along the New Madrid fault zone: Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. Sixty-three Middle/Junior High School, exemplary earth- science teachers will be selected: 28 the first year and 35 the second, evenly representing the seven states. The project includes a summer institute (2 weeks the first year, and 8 days the second) and follow-up activities each year. The teachers will receive a variety of instructional strategies (e.g. lectures, field and laboratory work, computer simulation, etc.) and a video produced by the project to facilitate earthquake education for students, teachers, and the general public. It is expected that each participant will conduct at least 3 awareness workshops averaging 20 teachers each; thereby almost 4,000 teachers will become familiar with the New Madrid Earthquake Project. The project provides a model for the study of other regional earth science topics. The utilization of regional topics results in secondary science students understanding a greater relevance for science in general, and earth science in particular. The cost sharing by UMC is close to 52% of the amount requested from NSF.
