Download a unique educational tool, a comic book about the origin of seismic waves during earthquakes and their importance for learning about the structure of our Earth. The comic book is intended for primary school pupils. Once you get acquainted with the story of a seismic wave, play a board game designed for 1-4 players. You can download the game for free below, you will only need 4 game pieces and two dice.
Download the Comic Book and the board game free under the Creative Commons licence:
Comic book cover – profi printing version, PDF file
Comic book for home printing – large version – PDF file
Comic book for home printing – small version – PDF file
Comic book ofset, profi printing version – PDF file
Board game – profi printing version, PDF file
Faults for the game – printing version
The comic book was created on the initiative of the staff of the Geophysical Institute Matěj Machek and Petr Brož. It was drawn by Karolina Kučerová (whose work you can watch in this video or here) and written by Lucie Lukačovičová. The Observatory and the Planetarium of the Capital City of Prague and ESERO (European Space Education Resource Office) also took part in the creation. The work can be freely downloaded and freely distributed under a Creative Commons license.
And here are the main heroes of the story of the seismic wave:
Older sister – she attends an eight-year secondary school, is interested in natural sciences, gathers various interesting things and unusual information that she is interested in, which she can easily remember – and she does not hesitate to share them
Younger brother – he likes the universe and superhero stories, he likes to read and watch movies, he has a great imagination, he is curious, but a program prepared for him by adults is not always according to his taste
P-wave (primary wave) – a seismic wave that moves at the highest speed, ie always “runs” first; it spreads from the place of origin in all directions, it can run through the whole Earth, including the Earth’s core, so it can appear on a seismograph in the Czech Republic, even if it originated on the west coast of the U.S.A.; at the interfaces of different environments (different temperature and pressure inside the Earth) it changes speed and direction.
S-wave (secondary wave) – is slower than P-wave and, moreover, cannot pass through a liquid medium (ie where the rock is so hot that it melts and flows – for example, in the earth’s core); therefore, his faster “sister” is lost several times during the journey; but it always reappears when the environment changes; P-waves and S-waves are the cause of earthquakes and tsunamis at sea.
Twins
– the first of the “brothers” is Love’s wave, which oscillates perpendicular to the direction of its movement, that is, it actually slithers like a snake, in loops from side to side;
– the second is the Rayleigh wave, the slowest of all, which is actually circular, so it moves in “somersaults”, similar to the waves we can see in sea waves when they break, spin and create “tunnels”
Both of these waves are created when the P-wave reaches the surface, they propagate at the surface and are slower than the P and S-waves – that’s why our heroine doesn’t know about them until they reach the station; and therefore the twins had the opportunity to “see” the devastation left behind by their faster “sisters”.
