Student slideshow: English | Spanish

Teacher printout: English & Spanish

5 Facts About Volcanoes That Will Make Your Brain Explode (Not Really)

In this reading, students learn 5 fascinating facts about volcanoes.

A 10-minute video from Yosemite National Park shows what happens when rocks break off a steep slope.

• Activity Extension: Add to your Sugar Shake experiment by mixing in softer and harder “rocks.” In the Sugar Shake experiment, you are modeling a situation where identical rocks are tumbling together. You can see what happens when rocks of different types are bumping into each other by adding croutons (softer, more breakable “rocks”) and/or dried beans (harder, less breakable “rocks” to the container before you shake it. How does the addition of other "rocks" affect the changes in the sugar cubes? How do the croutons and beans change with your shaking?

• Activity: Take your class for a walk in your schoolyard and look for plants that have taken root where they don’t belong. You may find grass growing in cracks in a sidewalk or plants sprouting between stones or bricks in a wall. The roots of these plants are ever-so-slowly expanding the cracks in which they grow. Just as the plants on the side of a mountain break rocks apart, the plants in your schoolyard are breaking the sidewalk and the stone walls.

• Demonstration: Show that seeds can lift weights.