Virginia Levy and The Sunshine Friends at Greenzaid ECC, B'nai Tzedek, Potomac, MD



Building and Erupting a Volcano!!


A puzzle on the table depicted several dinosaurs, and an erupting volcano in the background. At lunch time, many of children were still talking about it and the next day, during our group time, they were enthusiastically describing it, with sound effects to dramatize the scene.

This was followed by a lengthy discussion about volcanoes then and now. Somebody's grandmother had been to Hawaii, which brought us to the definite conclusion that there are still volcanoes today, but just not where we live, in Maryland.
How could we see one???

Well we could go to Hawaii or Alaska but that is a bit long for a field trip...

Or... we could make our own. A big one for the whole class!
We found and old dome, and attached a plastic bottle inside. We put this contraption on a wood board, and proceeded to mix paper mache with lots of water and some glue, and covered the entire dome with this messy, yucky, great stuff.
No one said that volcano making is a clean activity!
We let it dry over the weekend, and on Monday we assembled the ingredients to make it erupt: baking soda, vinegar and food coloring.
The students took turns spooning baking soda into the opening... Then we mixed the vinegar with red coloring and poured it in...

Then - WOOOSH!!! It erupted!
Over and over and over again!
And when it erupts, the "lava" colors the sides of the volcano and makes it wet and messy again, just as real lava messes up the area around a volcano.


After this project, our students have become more interested in real volcanoes, doing some research on their own, bringing pictures, and asking questions. It’s been so spectacular that the other classes in our school have asked us for demonstrations!!

We have learned how volcanoes are formed, what makes them erupt, what is inside of them and where the lava comes from - and we are still learning!!! This has also given us an opportunity to teach our students about the world. We have a map and have been marking some places where there are volcanoes such as Alaska, Chile, Africa and Hawaii.

Everyone has had a great time learning about volcanoes while building and erupting one of our own. 


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