Introduction

1cPrimary Contact: Thomasandrewlee@college.harvard.edu

Kyoto Tsukuba Kaisei High School

Deployment

1Miyazaki Prefectural Nobeoka High School

Table 1students provide the humanoversight needed for digitizing
seismograms. This is thefirst time DigitSeis has been
deployed on this scale, andthis was made possible by thework of the School Innovation
Forum in seeking participationof schools. In total, almost
180 students across 14 highschools are participating. The
program was categorized inmostschools
asanextracurricular activity, though
it was given either as extraindependent study or as partof the regular curriculum in afew cases.

Yokohama Science Fron�er High School

Tokyo Metropolitan Hibiya High School

Extracurricular

Extracurricular

Extracurricular

Independent Study

2141141215

Solicitation of Participation

Yashiro Senior High School

Extracurricular

13

image

has

been

Results

Participant Statistics

Students were given a survey to complete at
the beginning of the program asking them

their favorite subjects, and then their skill andinterest level in the different components ofSTEM. In general, participating students

favor Math and Science as subjects,
though this may be due to the extracurricularnature of the program. Within STEM,

080%

1004030201004000Engineering Skill

MaleFemale

50Engineering Interest

MaleFemale

50100100

Digitized 1937 Earthquake

Digitized by: Karen Karashima of Kyoto Tsubaka Kaisei High School

3%

9%

11%

4% 4%

19%

ED51C-0683

11%

12%

21%

6%

51%

Gender Distribution

49%

Male

Favorite Subjects of Participating Students

4030

201004030

2001000Technology Skill

MaleFemale

50

Technology Interest

MaleFemale

50

1001004030201004030200Math Skill

MaleFemale

50Math Interest

MaleFemale

50Viewing Feedback

0100Self Reported Skill and Interest in STEM Subjects (0-100 Scale)

Science Skill

MaleFemale
FemaleMale50Science Interest

30

200102Female
MaleMale
Female100100whose responses were generally more groupedaround 50. The survey will be re-administered at Female
the end of the program. Participating students
are80% first year students, and the rest are second years (of three year
phhrogram.
high schools), making this is a great opportunity to introduce the sciences.

students
generally
reportskillat around50 and interest decaying away
extracurricularnatureof theprogram.
Withinfrom
100students
on a 0-100scale. MaleSTEM,
generally
rep participants
ort skill at report both higher skill
aaroundand interest
their female counterparts
Year Distribution
50 and interest
decayingthan
awayfrom 100.
20%

4030
20
100403020100

950

Extracurricular

759

0Extracurricular

010To�ori Prefectural Yonago Higashi High School

Extracurricular

Curricular

Analysiswith Cor
rections
NeededTokushima Prefectural Wakimachi Senior High School1) Bogiatzis, P., and M. Ishii (2016). DigitSeis: A New Digitization Software for Analog Seismograms. Seismological Research Letters, 87(3), 726-736.
DigitSeis Main Page: http://www.seismology.harvard.edu/research/DigitSeis.html
DigitSeis Citizen Science (English): http://www.seismology.harvard.edu/research/DigitSeisJapan/index_en.html
DigitSeis Citizen Science (Japanese): http://www.seismology.harvard.edu/research/DigitSeisJapan/index.html
We thank Moeko Kobayashi of Kyoto University for assistance with translation.

References and Acknowledgements

corrections, most are of a usable quality. Especially exciting is an earthquake from 1937 thatwas recently newly digitized by a student who has moved beyond the first training analysis.

Of the first round of digitized analyses received, many did require corrections, and as a result,a feedback component of the program has been developed. This allows analysts/graders to add
comments to the actual point on the analysis where the issues are, allowing the student to go
straight to the issue and correct the problem. Although first analyses typically require some

Digitization Results

Digitized by: Shunta Murayama of Kyoto Tsubaka Kaisei High School

Miyazaki Prefectural Nobeoka High Schoolinternet access policies making it difficult for schools todownload and upload materials for the project.

Network Access - Many Japanese schools have strict

with many different systems from the newest machines
to 32-bit Windows machines with 2GB RAM.

Compatibility - Software had to be made compatible

should likely take into account. Chief among these were:During this first deployment of DigitSeis, we encountered
several technical problems which any similar projectTechnical Challenges* Indicates a private school

Kumamoto Prefectural Daini High School

3519

Naganoken Suwa Seiryo High School

Independent Study

Students

Kyoto Prefectural Momoyama Senior High School

Extracurricular

Extracurricularexample

Independent StudyKyoto Tsukuba Kaisei High School*

Curricular & Extracurricular

School interest and participation was solicitedby the School Innovation Forum. This wasaccomplished largely through reaching out toNara Women’s University Secondary School

Activity Typehigh schools via email, their website, andnetwork of educators.

Wakayama Prefectural Tanabe High School

thisMiyagi Prefectural Tagajo High School

Development of Student Interestimages.

successfully digitized, students are asked toprogress to other previously undigitized

Oncedigitized) to learn to use the DigitSeis software.

Students were given video-walkthroughs andan example analysis (that has been previouslyTraining

earthquakes, environmental monitoring, etc.).

Special focus was put upon the way that theanalog seismograms which students digitized
could be used in the future to solve big
problems in science (e.g., finding newParticipating schools were provided withmaterials about seismology and earthquakes.

Ritsumeikan Keisho Junior & Senior High School*

School Name

DigitSeis is currently being
used in Japanese highschools(Table1),as
research experience where1
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
School Innovation Forum, 3Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University
4
Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, Washington, DC2

Thomas Lee1, Miaki Ishii1, Toshihiro Morinaga2,3, & John Taber4

DigitSeis: Opportunities for Digitization of Analog
Seismograms Through Educators and Citizen Science

Harvard Seismology Group, is the only one of thesethat takes into account the timemarks and generates
digital time series.

inaccessible to modern analyses. To address thisissue, there have been several softwares developed
to convert scanned images of paper seismograms into
digital traces. DigitSeis1, a software developed by theA large amount of seismic data was recorded during
the analog era (1a) and is still stored around the worldin the form of paper records (1b,1c). However as aresult of their format, these records are often

1a. Eras of Analog and Digital Recording

Red bars represent the power of major earthquakes

1b. HVO Historical Record Collection

12:15

Converting scanned images into
digital time-series via DigitSeis ispartially automated but still requires
human inputs for complications suchas crossed traces (1c) and assigningreference times (1d).

1h: Climate Change
Era of Analog Recording

typically associated with seismology such as climate change (1h).

volcanic eruptions (1i), storm strength from wave-generated
seismic noise (1f,1g), and generally long-timescale problems notthey cover, allowing forquantitative analysis of long
Photo: USGS
timescale or rare phenomenon. Examples of possible analyses
quantitativeUSGS
include yields and behavior of nuclear tests (1e), behavior of pastspread and far-reaching. The
greatest merit of analog
records are the long time span

Applications for digitized 1i: 1974 Mauna Ulu Eruption
analog seismograms are wide-

13:0012:45

12:30

1d: Timing assignment inDigitSeis

1e: Operation Crossroads

Photo: Nuclear Weapon Archive

1f: Wave-Action on Shore

1g: Hurricane Isabel

Photo: NASA