Dr Natalie Balfour. Photo by Tegan Dolstra.
A national network of earthquake detectors is connecting Canberra kids with real science, writes TEGAN DOLSTRA. Don't be alarmed, but you could be experiencing an earthquake right now. Your feet may be planted firmly on the ground, the surface of your coffee smooth and calm, but beneath you the internal organs of the Earth grumble and fidget a constant indigestion. Canberra shakes about once a week, and although most of these quakes are too minor for us to register, every 10 years or so a definite tremor gets Canberrans all shook up. This April's quake, dubbed 'The Great Tremble of Canberra' and satirically symbolised by a photo capturing the aftermath, where a single garden chair has fallen over, is about the closest many locals will get to the real deal. But hundreds of Canberra high school students now have the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the inner workings of the Earth. Funded by the Australian Government's Education Investment Fund, the Australian Seismometers in Schools program is installing 40 seismometers (machines that detect and record earthquakes) in schools across the country.
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