“When the Earth Quakes” and “When the Earth Flares” are titles of the two comics that our scientists created in co-operation with a graphic designer and a writer. The aim is to inspire young people and adults to discover physics in a new way.
The first comic book called When the Earth Quakes tells a story of the origin of seismic waves during earthquakes, and highlights their importance for discovering the structure of the Earth. The main heroine is the P seismic wave, which tells children how she was born at the fault, ran through the globe and emerged in a seismic record at the observatory.
“I gladly and quite often present for students– that’s why I know it is not easy to attract teenagers’ attention. Our comics should help the teachers to explain the schoolwork in a more fun way,” says Petr Brož, planetary geologist and one of the authors.
Fig. 1: Comic “When the Earth Quakes”
Because the first comic was a success, a second book called When the Earth Flares was created. The comic tells a story of two siblings pursuing some strange sounds they heard on a radio station at their grandpa’s. Through this tale, the readers get to know how and where the geomagnetic field comes into existence, how it manifests, and why it is critically important for life on Earth.
The comics were created in both the Czech and English languages. “I think that one can use this comic not only in geography classes, but also in physics or English classes,” adds Matěj Machek, geologist and another author of the comics.
Fig. 2: Comic “When the Earth Flares”
The comics are not only a less traditional learning tool; they also have artistic merits. While the cover is in full colour, the internal pages and illustrations are black-and-white so readers can show their own colouring talents. For the playful ones, there are board games attached as well.
Fig. 3: Board games
Both comics can be freely downloaded from our institute‘s webpages and distributed, as they are released under a Creative Commons license. More information can be found here.