Earthquake Simulator
NGSS MS-ESS3-2
Read the standard: MS-ESS3-2
Shake buildings at different magnitudes and see which design choices keep a structure standing.
About This Interactive
What do students do?
Students set a magnitude, a distance, and a depth, press Run, and watch a cutaway building shake, crack, and report its damage state and repair cost. Then come the experiments: the same quake with P waves only versus P and S together, a shallow quake versus a deep one, and the run that decides the lesson, an identical magnitude 7 thrown at a house built to code and at one that isn't, with the repair bill dropping from $42,000 to $11,000. A skyscraper option swaps in base isolation for comparison. The full lesson is framed as a city council vote on requiring earthquake codes, and every vote has to cite a number from the voter's own runs.
What does it cover?
NGSS MS-ESS3-2 on forecasting natural hazards and the technologies that reduce their damage, plus MS-ETS1-2 on evaluating competing design solutions. Shaking comes from a real published intensity equation, and students learn to keep a quake's magnitude separate from the shaking felt at a place. Key vocabulary: magnitude, intensity, epicenter, P wave, S wave, building code.
How long does it take?
20 to 30 minutes for the quick version, or one 50 minute middle school lesson.
What does it run on?
Every SciMinis interactive runs free in the browser with nothing to install and no accounts, on Chromebooks, laptops, tablets, and phones. It's fully bilingual: one tap switches the whole interactive, worksheet included, between English and Spanish.
What do teachers get?
Each interactive ships with vocabulary flashcards, a ten-question worksheet students can export as a PDF, and complete NGSS-aligned lesson plans: a 20 to 30 minute quick version and a full timed 5E lesson. The lesson plans and answer key stay behind a free teacher password, so students can't peek.