Volcanoes and Vulcanologists has been created as a teaching resource for the City of Edinburgh Council’s ‘Curiosity Club’, an Intervention Strategy initiative that is currently operating in Council schools. The interdisciplinary approach involves pupils in developing knowledge and skills through five separate lessons.

The first session involves pupils experimenting with everyday chemicals to make a ‘volcano’.

The second session uses food (biscuits, bananas, custard) to show the structure and functioning of the different Earth layers.

The third session involves a comparison test to mimic lava flow in different types of volcano.

The fourth session involves composing a rap or poem using knowledge of the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, the location for 75% of the Earth’s volcanoes.

The final section looks at the advantages and disadvantages of living near a volcano, where the learning is deepened using expressive arts. Vinnie (the volcano character), learning book and Vinnie certificate are included with a lesson plan and ppt for each of the five sessions.

This resource was created as part of the GeoScience Outreach Course, which is a 4th year undergraduate course in the School of GeoSciences aiming to provide students with the opportunity to develop their own science communication and engagement project.

Click here to view and download ‘Volcanos and Volcanologists (IDL)’ on TES

 

Header image: Forest of lava trees resulting from eruption of a 1-km-line of vents east of Pu’u Kahaulea on Hawai’i Island’s Kilauea Volcano, by USGS on Unsplash