North Shore Ninth Graders Study Notorious Volcanoes
Article by Shelly Newman

Ninth graders at North Shore High School in Laura Napoli’s class recently learned that volcanoes are not always only big cone-shaped mountains that spew out lava in giant explosions. They researched that volcanoes come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of activity and, therefore, notoriety.  

The Earth Science class had the opportunity to choose a volcano from a list of notable events in history and conduct research, experiment, and gather facts and information. To culminate their studies, each student either alone or with a partner made a presentation to their classmates in the form of a poster, scientific letter, or model of their volcano. Ms. Napoli said each presentation had to contain, “The name and type of volcano studied, the location/country where the volcano erupted, and its map of coordinates and elevation of summit (i.e., height).” She added “My students had to “summarize the important eruption dates and provide a volcano diagram representing the tectonic plate, general shape, crustal movement, and magma.”

On the day of the presentations, each group excitedly got up in front of the class and expertly communicated to their peers the facts, events, and characteristics of their historic volcanoes. Student Gabri Vezza said, “It was fun because we were able to be creative in our presentations and learn so much about volcanoes. I learned that some volcanoes including mine rarely are harmful when they erupt.”

It was apparent that each of the students engaged in passionate learning and critical thinking while having fun studying notorious volcanoes in history. To conclude, ninth grader Andrew Greaney commented, “Don’t mess with volcanoes!”