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| Students Become Consultants for Helping Link | |
| Get Set for Emerald City Search | |
| Designing a Fake Quake |
Students Become Consultants for Helping Link
Visit Helping Link on any given day and you’re likely to find an English as a Second Language (ESL) class or a computer literacy class in session. The Seattle non-profit has been offering these and other services to Seattle’s Vietnamese community for years. But director Minh-Duc Nguyen wondered whether Helping Link was doing all it could to meet the community’s needs.
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UW students Hoang-Oanh Tran (standing) and Elizabeth Mylan Vu talk to Helping Link clients during the focus group session. Photo by Gretchen Ludwig. |
“The people here are so grateful for the help we give them,” she says of the Vietnamese clients who use Helping Link’s ESL, computer literacy, citizen training, and referral services. “They are hesitant to tell us if they think we need to improve anything.”
To bridge this information gap, Nguyen enlisted the help of the UW Department of Sociology’s practicum program. Through the program, students use skills gained in their sociology classes to address real-world issues.
Graduate student Nika Kabiri led the one-quarter practicum course, with ten students participating. “It was run like we were a research consulting firm,” says Kabiri. “I was the research supervisor and the students were the experts.”
The students gathered information through interviews, a focus group, and a survey administered at the annual Vietnamese Tet celebration at Seattle Center. After analyzing their data, they developed recommendations for Helping Link.
“One or two students had market research experience, and a few had taken a methods class, but most hadn’t done anything like this before,” says Kabiri.
For many students, the focus group was a highlight. “The students really got to interact with Helping Link clients,” says Kabiri. (A translator was present for non-English speaking clients.) “It made the process real to them. The respondents were very talkative and open. The students did a great job of making them feel comfortable.”
Developing the survey (offered in English and Vietnamese) was another eye-opening experience. “The first time anybody puts together a survey, it is difficult,” says Kabiri. “You can’t anticipate how people will read the questions and react to them.” It helped that Vietnamese-American students in the class could address the cultural appropriateness of the questions.
The second half of the quarter was spent analyzing survey data and preparing a final report. “This was a very intense report to put together,” says sociology major Tim Thomas. “We put our hearts into it. We wanted to be sure we didn’t lead Helping Link in the wrong direction. We wanted to be sure this was good data, not misleading.”
The 40-page report included numerous recommendations, ranging from more field trips for ESL students—enabling them to practice English outside of the classroom— to developing a standardized syllabus so instructors avoid spending endless hours developing their own.
Kabiri says she was “blown away” by the students’ dedication throughout the project. Thomas says it helped that the practicum course frequently tapped into previous coursework. “I think I pulled something from every other sociology class I’ve taken,” he says. “Every single one.”
The course is one of several practicum opportunities offered by Sociology. The goal, says Kabiri, is to show students what they can do with sociology, from nonprofit work to marketing to sales.
“And now,” she adds, “they have some experience when competing for jobs.”
Get Set for Emerald City Search
Two years ago, the winner of the first Emerald City Search found the elusive medallion along the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Last year, the medallion was found under a park bench in West Seattle. Wondering where it will be hidden this year?
You can try your hand at this year’s citywide treasure hunt when the event kicks off in October.
The Emerald City Search is designed by UW faculty and staff with a different focus — and a different community partner — each year. This year, with Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) as a partner, the search will focus on the plight of frogs and amphibians.
The WPZ warns of a “global amphibian crisis” due to habitat destruction and a deadly parasite fungus, batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. As many as 165 amphibian species may already be extinct, with populations of local frogs, including the chorus frogs, spotted frogs, newts, and salamanders, in rapid decline.
For the Emerald City Search, UW and WPZ experts will develop a series of challenging frog-related clues, leading participants through the city in search of the coveted medallion. The winner of the search will receive $2,500 in cash and prizes.
The UW introduced Emerald City Search in 2006 to underscore its ongoing connection to the community and its commitment to lifelong learning.
To participate, look for clues in The Seattle Times or at www.seattletimes.com beginning October 15. The Seattle Times will publish one clue each day for ten consecutive days, leading Seattle adventurers to the location of the mysterious medallion.
Designing a Fake Quake
In the early morning hours of March 5, emergency managers in several Washington counties faced a harrowing scenario. A magnitude 6.7 earthquake had struck the region, causing power outages and major damage to bridges and roadways. The
managers kicked into high gear, searching for information about the quake and
meeting to plan their response.
The rest of us slept through the whole ordeal since it was a simulation—dubbed Sound Shake ’08—rather than an actual earthquake.
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John Vidale in the UW Seismology Lab. Photo by
Mary Levin. |
Sound Shake was designed by the State of Washington’s Emergency Management Division and several cities and counties to test emergency managers’ preparedness for an actual quake, including their ability to gather and share information following such a catastrophic event. The UW’s Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN), based in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences, was a partner in the Sound Shake exercise.
“It’s hard to prepare for big earthquakes because they happen so rarely,” says John Vidale, professor of Earth and Space Sciences, PNSN director, and state seismologist. “For Sound Shake, emergency managers wanted us to feed them a realistic earthquake scenario so they could respond appropriately.”
Two scenarios came to mind. PNSN could simulate a major earthquake along the coast, which occurs about every 500 years, or a quake under Seattle, which occurs about every 1,000 years. The team chose the Seattle scenario, “designing” a magnitude 6.7 quake on the Seattle fault under Lake Washington, which would likely cause serious damage to the region’s infrastructure.
Emergency managers were told that the earthquake would “hit” at 7 a.m.
on March 5 but were given no other information. Through the exercise they would learn more—assuming information distribution worked as planned—and then plan their response.
During an actual earthquake, seismometers record ground motion and transmit data to PNSN’s central computer, which maps the quake’s location. Detailed information, including the likelihood of damage to specific roads and bridges, is forwarded to emergency managers by email, pager, and PNSN’s website. A list of bridges and their fragility—developed after the 2001 Nisqually earthquake—combined with information about proximity to the quake, helps pinpoint structures at risk of damage.
How did participants perform during Sound Shake? “Some agencies used the information from our seismic network just right,” says Vidale, “but others never even pulled out a map. They need to be using maps and GIS systems so they can be sharing information more effectively. This exercise made us realize that frequent drills are important.”
More than 500 people participated in Sound Shake, including PNSN staff, emergency managers, observers, and evaluators.
“News reporters participated too,” says Vidale. “We didn’t think it would be realistic if there weren’t reporters around, clamoring for information.”