Students will develop an individual or group project (e.g., designing a mobile application to warn of incoming shock waves; a report on emergency robotics search and rescue, including demonstrations with drones; roles for residential faculty and staff, and provisioning of their residences; an analysis of telework capabilities under disaster conditions; development of training and awareness materials; researching the 1811-12 earthquake effects on early Nashville, and today’s methodology for estimating their magnitude; a fictional short-story, set in the near future, on the implications of an earthquake on Vanderbilt and Nashville, with some treatment of technology; a graphic design poster/flyer/e-image to increase awareness).

Student projects will be presented at a poster session, open to the University, at the end of the semester.

The schedule budgets 14.25 hours, per student, for the project, though students are welcome to spend more time. This is based on the workload expectations for a one-credit course, which is 3 hours total work per week. The 14.25 hours, if well spent, in the last weeks of the semester is what I expect a student would spend for an B+ grade or better on the project.

Each individual or team will also draft their own grading rubric for the project, which they will discuss and revise with the instructor.