Students conduct tsunami research

Story Posted: Thu, May 1, 2008

By Laura Rillos
KVAL CBS 13

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon middle school students are making a big splash at Oregon State University's Hindsdale Wave Research Laboratory.

Students from 11 schools across the state spent months working on the project, first designing their tsunami shelters on a computer program, then building them with wood blocks and toothpaste.

That's right - toothpaste.

Here's why: The waves and shelters are scaled down to 1/50th of the normal size, so the adhesive in the project must be too.

Toothpaste fits the bill.

On Thursday, May 1, students put their projects to the test in OSU's tsunami wave basin.

The buildings go through three waves: the equivalent of a 15-foot, 30-foot and 45-foot tsunami.

Most survive the first and second waves. When the powerful third one hits, some aren't so lucky.

Of course, there is an educational component to all of this.

The idea is to make science and technology relevant to students in hopes of fostering an interest in those careers.

Sixth grade students from coastal town Gold Beach, a tsunami danger zone, tell us they're definitely interested.

"Yeah i'm giving it a possibility shot now," said Garrett Litterell.

"Yeah, I think it'd be a cool idea. It'd be kinda fun," said Tyler Norton.

Their shelters survived all three tsunamis, earing them a "wave" review from Harry Yeh, a civil engineer.

"That's pretty good," said Yeh. "It's not broken. No damage."