AS "DANTE'S PEAK" HITS THE BIG SCREEN, NASA BRINGS VOLCANOES TO CYBERSPACE AND THE CLASSROOM

See "Exploring the Environment" at http://www.cotf.edu/ete/main.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 12, 1997

"There are many dangers associated with volcanoes that the public isn't aware of, and I thought this would make a great subject for a movie," said Roger Donaldson, the director of "Dante's Peak," a movie about a small Pacific Northwest town of the same name awakened by a catastrophic volcanic eruption.

Volcanic dangers aren't confined to the big screen; students across the country are studying them on school computer screens as well, and finding them just as scary.

Thanks to "Exploring the Environment," a NASA-sponsored project that promotes the use of space imagery in education, teachers and students across the country may now download educational modules where students work in teams to assess volcanic hazards. The lessons on volcanoes are part of a collection of real-world, problem-solving exercises in environmental science topics such as endangered species, severe storms, and volcanic hazards.

Developed by NASA's "Classroom of the Future" program at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, the educational modules are located at http://www.cotf.edu/ete/main.html

For the past 18 months, high school student teams across the country have been analyzing volcanic hot spots using NASA satellite imagery. The dangers associated with volcanoes are no strangers to these students, who study about the glowing, incandescent clouds of volcanic debris that can move down a valley at 100 miles an hour, annihilating everything in their path. They also learn about lahars, a torrential flow of water-saturated volcanic debris that can smother a town, such as in "Dante's Peak."

The students, however, don't need an imaginary town like Dante's Peak to study volcanic hazards. There are plenty of real life examples, with towns that eerily resemble Dante's Peak and exist in the shadow of a major volcano. Students study the small town of Orting, Washington which faces the very real hazard of being within 50 miles of Mt. Rainier, one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. Robert Myers, project leader at Wheeling Jesuit University, is a strong believer in the educational benefits of getting students engaged in addressing complex, real-world problems.

"Life doesn't give you orderly problems laid out like a textbook. In real-world problem-solving, you have to define exactly what the question really is, determine what you already have as resources, and figure out what you still need to know to solve the problem," said Myers. "By presenting 'messy' problems with personal meaning to the students, we've set the stage for highly-motivated investigation of a lot of material surrounding the problem."

Myers is also passionate about the value of NASA space imagery that can be delivered to schools across the country, and even the world, via the Internet.

There is a universe of downloadable images available for students to explore just a mouse click away. We've used satellite images not only in science classes but also political science, economics, history, and more," he said.

Students study volcanic features near Seattle and Portland, on the island of Hawaii, and in Yellowstone National Park (another volcanic hot spot) using satellite imagery and the latest geological information. With this arsenal of information, they are charged with assessing the eruption hazard and the likely catastrophic effects that would follow.

Students learn that not all volcanoes are alike. Some, like the Hawaiian island volcanoes, erupt frequently but less explosively. The volcanoes around the Pacific Rim (the aptly named Circle of Fire) include the Cascade mountain range volcanoes. These volcanoes often erupt unpredictability with huge explosions. An explosion of this volcanic type occurred in 1985 when the Ruiz volcano in Columbia killed 25,000 people, many of whom could have been saved with adequate warning.

In "Dante's Peak," the mayor of the town, played by Linda Hamilton, teams with a volcanologist to help the town understand the danger they face. In the modules of the "Exploring the Environment" project, students across the country work together using the scientific resources of NASA and the Internet to investigate whether Orting, Seattle, and Portland are in danger of becoming another "Dante's Peak."

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