High School Interns:
Red Huckleberries (Hisi·Ɂa·d)

The Makah CASE team is mentoring and collaborating with four 9th-grade interns from Neah Bay High School (Nani, Kali, Amnesty, and Qwaapeys) on an exciting project that explores how Cascadia geohazards impact their local community. Over the winter, the team connected with the interns remotely, but during UW Spring Break, they had the chance to meet in person, bringing their collaboration to the next level! One of the highlights of their work together was the creation of a team name: Red Huckleberries (Hisi·Ɂa·d). The name comes from the RaspberryShake seismometer the team will be installing at Neah Bay High School this spring. While raspberries aren’t native to the area, huckleberries are, so the students felt Red Huckleberries was a perfect fit! One of the interns, Nani, a 9th-grader, even designed a logo for the team, which will soon be digitized into stickers. Another intern, Amnesty, wrote a blog post to share her experience as part of the team. Be sure to check out her post below to hear directly from her about this exciting internship experience!

For my role as an intern, I explored earthquake risks and how people in our area have experienced them. My job was to interview elders about their past experiences with earthquakes. Their stories taught me a lot about how people dealt with earthquakes before we had modern technology.

One tool that could really help today is a seismometer. This device measures how much the ground shakes during an earthquake and helps track how strong and frequent earthquakes are. It can also send early warnings, giving people more time to stay safe.

Experts say there’s a risk of a massive earthquake, like the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, which could cause serious damage in Washington. Having a seismometer would help us track these risks and prepare better.

Talking to the elders and learning about new technology made me realize how important it is to be prepared for future earthquakes. A seismometer would be a key step in protecting our community.

By: Amnesty – 9th Grade Neah Bay High School