Volcanoes

The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top

The Magic School Bus Blows Its Top is an activity where children are suppose to find their way from the center of the earth to the volcanoes surface. This activity requires the navigation through a maze behind it there is a picture of a volcano with different levels of the center of the earth including the inner core, outer core, mantle, and the crust. While going through each area of earth’s crust is explained, this includes the temperature of the area of the center of the earth, what it is composed of and the state of matter. Then when the top of the volcano is reached there is an eruption and that is also explained. Lastly the activity finishes off with “Volcano Factoids” where the child is given different knowledge about volcanoes around the world and other facts in general such as where the name volcano originated from.

This activity is for students in second grade the knowledge gained is very basic but children need to have the ability to read in order to obtain knowledge. It is very easy for students to simply focus on the maze itself and not actually pay attention to the information that is being provided to them, I know this was my case when I first came across the activity. As a teacher it is necessary to make sure students focus on the information rather than the game itself. Another disadvantage of the activity is that there is no way to test the students’ comprehension on the material through this game. There is a pop quiz about the earth on the same site that includes material presented here but only 4 out of the 8 questions are related not making it very useful. This activity does present a different way of providing the information for the students that includes a visual and builds new knowledge that can be used before beginning a new lesson about volcanoes with the students.

(evaluated by Alejandra Santillanes)

Volcanoes

When it comes to learning valuable content in classrooms today, it?s important for the resources to be interactive and informative so that information is readily available for the students. For example, take the topic of volcanoes. How can educators provide information about this subject without making it seem dull and boring? Well, in this website called Discover Kids: Volcano Explorer, information about volcanoes is transformed from dull and boring to engaging and interactive.

Right off the bat, this website gives off an inviting stance by merely describing what volcanoes can be like with clever adjectives such as ?beautiful and powerful? and ?awe-inspiring and deadly? to draw the student in. The student must then click on the enter button in order to be taken into the main page where a world of information awaits. Upon clicking the button, a 3D figure of the planet Earth is seen rotating. While doing this, there is a key next to the rotating globe indicating what the marks on the planet?s surface mean such as the boundary lines of plate tectonics and active volcanoes today. A brief but right to the point paragraph is positioned below the rotating planet describing how plate tectonics work in relation to volcanoes. Just on the right side of this paragraph, the student also has several more topic options such as the layers within the earth and of the ring of fire. These topics all relate to volcanoes and how they work. Upon clicking either topic, the rotating sphere corresponds to the subject by highlighting/pointing it out through labeling and animations.

Another interesting find about this website is how the menu is placed on the left side of the page. This provides an organized manner in navigating through website with other links such as volcano types and what the inside of a volcano looks like. What?s really positive about each link here is how the information is presented. The display of information is similar as the first time the student clicked to enter and saw the 3D figure of the planet Earth which only shows just how user-friendly this website is. Little animations on the 3D figures presented also help tremendously in giving the student a feel for how volcanoes act and the language used to describe each topic are all in relation to what the student is visually seeing. This proves to be a great feature should an English language learner use the site to find information. Having the visuals also aligned next to the text also proves to be another positive aspect since the English language learner would have a much better chance at not getting confused on what is being discussed.

To further expand on the student?s interactive journey in acquiring more information about volcanoes, there is a virtual volcano activity. This activity has the student creating different types of volcanoes and their varied eruptions. Since this activity is a bit more complex by asking the student to set viscosity and gas levels, there are two links right next to those settings providing definitions of both levels in a simplified language. This is a positive feature here for the English language learner to click on should he/she not know exactly what the activity is asking. Once conditions have been set, the activity describes what kind of volcano the student has created and provides several characteristics. With this in mind, the student can then start the eruption by clicking the start button and a 3D figure of a volcano appears on the screen and starts erupting, sound effects included. As it is occurring, the animation begins labeling out specific parts of what is going on such as ?lava flows? and ?plume? and the student may click on those words to learn its definition. Labeling here works to help the student expand on his/hers vocabulary, which only makes this activity even more enriching.

Overall, this website is highly recommended for second language learners. It?s interactive, it?s visually appealing, and it?s incredibly easy to navigate through when it comes to learning more about volcanoes.

(evaluated by Michelle Lopez)