A three-year project aimed at embedding seismology into schools in northern England to support the teaching of the earth science strands in the National Curriculum for England and Wales is described. Seismometers were deployed in a range of high schools across the Yorkshire and Humberside region. Deployment was supported by a programme of staff training and a cohort of volunteer postgraduate students from the University of Leeds. The level of involvement in the project varied from school to school and many schools used the equipment in ways not originally envisaged at the start but that were still educationally valuable, especially to support teaching in physics. The attempted use of a virtual learning environment to build a community of seismologists was not successful. The deployment of seismometers in schools was shown to provide an inspirational platform for teaching both earth science and physics and had the additional benefit of building links between high schools and the university.