David C. Greene, professor of geosciences, published a paper on ¡°Increasing resilience to earthquakes through educating community builders: Teaching earthquake-resistant building techniques in Guatemala¡± in the book Wessel, G.R., and Greenberg, J.K., eds., Geoscience for the Public Good and Global Development: Toward a Sustainable Future: Geological Society of America Special Paper 520.

Greene notes: ¡°During a recent sabbatical I had the opportunity to teach earthquake-resistant building techniques in rural Guatemala, although I am neither a builder nor an engineer.

¡°I developed a one-hour presentation using a laptop computer and small portable projector. I used photographs of local buildings and simple graphics with minimal captions to illustrate best/poor practices with yes/no labels and to demonstrate basic design principles.

¡°Breakable models allowed me to show how and why the techniques worked during ground shaking. Manuals with additional information and examples (in Spanish and copiously illustrated for a low-literacy audience) were provided to each attendee, for later reference and the possibility of propagating this information forward.

¡°Most remote villages had access to sufficient electricity to run a small projector, and there was little difficulty in finding partners capable of providing running translation into local language(s). The most challenging aspect of this project was developing a working relationship with a local organization willing and able to assist with scheduling, publicity, and generally connecting me with appropriate audiences.

¡°My experience suggests that effective teaching, a skill that most geoscientists have and practice every day in their classrooms and workplaces, is the most critical tool for providing meaningful assistance with this and many other geoscience-related development issues. Expert knowledge, fluency in local languages, years of local experience and cultural insight are all useful but can be provided or developed through relationships with local partners.¡±