Science and Technology K–6 · Year 6

Shake table: which structure survives an earthquake?

Earth and Space: Changes to Earth's surface (NSW 2017 Stage 3); Science as a human endeavour (ACARA v9 Year 6)

PracticalLow risk

The idea

Sudden shaking of the ground in an earthquake pushes structures from side to side, and a frame braced with triangles on a wide base resists the shaking far better than an unbraced rectangular frame, which is why buildings in earthquake zones are braced.

What you need

2 stiff sheets of corrugated cardboard 40 cm x 30 cm and 4 tennis balls, stacked board, balls, board (a shake table)
a 30 cm ruler taped beside the top board to read how far it is shaken
a metronome app
paddle-pop sticks and a low-temperature glue gun, or straws and pipe cleaners
50 g of plasticine per tower as the top load
masking tape and a tablet to video each run

How to do it

Build two towers 30 cm tall on a 10 cm square base from the same materials, each with 50 g of plasticine fixed at the top: tower A with square wall panels only, tower B with one diagonal brace across every wall panel.
Tape tower A to the top board. Shake the board side to side 2 cm each way, one shake per beat at 60 beats per minute, for 20 seconds. Repeat at 4 cm and then 6 cm, then all three at 120 beats per minute.
Record for each run: stands, leans, or collapses. Measure the largest lean at the top from the video against the ruler.
Repeat every run with tower B.
Change one thing (a 20 cm base, or the plasticine moved halfway down) and retest.
Rank the designs by the largest shake each survived and write a recommendation for a building in an earthquake zone, linking it to the design and construction of buildings the syllabus names.

What you should see

The unbraced tower racks: each square panel leans over into a parallelogram, the top sways widely, and it often collapses at the larger shakes. The braced tower moves as one piece with far less lean, because a triangle cannot change shape unless one of its sides changes length. A wider base and a lower load reduce toppling. If one of the two shaking rates is close to a tower's own natural swaying rate, the tower sways much more at that rate (resonance); the video shows whether this happens. The class ranking of designs by the largest shake survived is the result.

What changes

What you change: tower design (bracing, base width, load height)
What you measure: largest shake survived and lean at the top
What you keep the same: tower height 30 cm
materials
50 g top load
shake distance and rate for each run
20-second runs

Common misconceptions

Each of these ideas is wrong, and the activity is a chance to test it.

A stronger material alone makes a building earthquake-proof (shape and bracing matter as much).
Taller buildings always fall first whatever the shaking.
Earthquakes only push the ground up and down.

Safety card

Low riskLearners carry it out

Hazards

glue gun burns
balls rolling underfoot
pinched fingers between the boards

Controls

low-temperature glue gun used with an adult present
balls kept between the boards and collected after use
hands on the board edge only

Note

Risk assessment before the lesson using Primary RiskAssess or the school's own template.

Curriculum references

The NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes this activity supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.

Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus (2017), current, taught until 2026; code read from the syllabus document on 22 September 2026ST3-10ES-S ST3-2DP-T ST3-1WS-S
Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus (2024), implemented from 2027; NESA's timeline is 2026 plan and prepare and 2027 start teaching, and schools may choose to implement it during 2026; code read from the outcomes page on 22 September 2026ST3-DDT-01
Australian Curriculum v9AC9S6H02AC9S6I02AC9S6I03AC9S6I05

Sources

The pages the author read to write this activity.

All Concept Studio activities