Reply To: Year 5 (Grade 4) Volcanoes Inquiry

[Jenny Toerien Keymaster]

[My reply]

Hi,

You could – but it would be a shame to separate the last little bit from the rest of the topic. An inquiry will often involve a taught element as part of Connect, so there is no need to separate your taught element out from the rest of the inquiry, and the degree to which you provide curated resources for them to work from is up to you. Do they all need to know each volcano in the same detail? Could small groups each do one and then report back to the rest of the class? How about something like this? You could build 10 minutes into the end of each lesson for them to think about what they are going to report back and who is going to do it.Week 1:

• Connect & Wonder (15-20 min): Why do people live near volcanoes? Perhaps show something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1vOdnDqY8E that gives a contrast for the impact of the Hawaii eruptions (which were inconvenient but to some extent a tourist show) with one in Indonesia, which was more deadly. It’s really short and gives a real sense of the downside of living near a volcano. Could use a volcanic eruption drill video like this one insetad:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-w_z9yobpE
• Discussion: For this age group maybe encourage 5Ws + H questions
  • e.g. What is a volcano? What is the land around volcanoes like?
  • Where do volcanoes form? (will lead into your teaching on plate boundaries)
  • Who lives near volcanoes? Who can tell if a volcano is going to erupt?
  • Why do people live near volcanoes? Why do volcanoes erupt?
  • When do volcanoes erupt? How much warning do we get?
  • How do we know if a volcano is going to erupt?
• Probably quickest to do this as a class exercise and gather class questions on a poster or board to display throughout the topic.
• Connect: Recap taught work on features of volcanoes from before HT and finish your taught element by looking at what happens at the boundaries of the earth’s plates.

Week 2:

• Investigate 1: Key facts about famous volcanoes. Case studies on Mauna Loa, Etna, St Helens, Vesuvius, Popocatepetyl. Could either do this as a taught segment or use videos and print resources for them to work in small groups to gather information in ‘key facts’ tables about a specific volcano. Can each group do a separate volcano and report back at the end?

Week 3: (or could do as part of week 2 if you’re really pushed?)

• Investigate 2: What happens when a volcano erupts? Group teaching about how volcanic eruption happens and the different potential effects, followed by chance to explore own volcano as a group. Look at impacts of the eruptions of your famous volcanoes. What happened physically (lava flow, mud, ash, dangerous gases)? How many people died or were displaced? How long did it take before people could come back?

Week 4:

• Investigate 3: Why do people live near volcanoes? Perhaps introduce with a video resource like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjswavT5tfQ (Inspire education) or this one (Why live near a volcano? DGS Geography (2013)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O9JRDfCGiY). They then need to investigate the advantages of the different volcanoes you have chosen. Depending on ability, you could make a list of the advantages together and then give them some pictures of the different volcanoes and maybe some brief snippets of text or pictures for them to rate the different volcanoes in the different ‘advantages’ areas (e.g. IS there a lot of farming around that volcano? IS there mineral mining? IS it a tourist attraction?).

Week 5:

• Report back to the class about their own group’s volcano. Use the sheets the groups have filled in in previous lessons to feed back – no need to make a poster – but might want to choose some photos as visual aids. Give the whole class a ‘rating’ sheet with different criteria to decide how much they want to live near each volcano and vote on a winner at the end. Be clear that they are rating the features of the volcano not the quality of the presentation!

It may be that you don’t think that will work – it would require some books or fact sheets each lesson on each volcano for them to work from as I’m assuming you aren’t going to be in the IT room (and at this age that would probably be a distraction anyway). If you want help designing some simple FOSIL sheets for them to gather their ideas on at each Investigate stage I could probably help with that. Do you already have some case study material on the different volcanoes (maybe even in their textbooks?) that you were planning to work with? Hope that helps. Ignore me if I am overcomplicating things!