Science: Volcanos 火山爆發

After weeks of slacking off in science due to move, I finally did a presentation today on volcanos.  It’s actually because our Story of the World chapter had an activity on volcanos and I signed up for it.  We’re trying a new thing in our co-op where we each sign up to host and present a history chapter so it’s not so hard on the two members who had been hosting most of the time.  Thankfully it nicely segwayed into layers of the earth and volcanos in science, planned presentations months ago before I veered off course.

Before we started on volcanos, first we had to continue from our First Great Lesson story about how the earth was created.   (We’d already done a few presentations on the states of matters but I also skipped a few presentations in the Creation of the Earth section of my album.)

First we read a picture book on the layers of the earth.  It’s a story about two animals who decided to dig their way to the other side of the earth.  From the picture book we learned some layers of the earth terms.

Presentation #1

Materials: tray, vaseline, ballon, flour, binder clip

This presentation came from my album.

Remember the earth was really hot and when things started settling, the heavier stuff sank to the bottom.  (Good thing they learned about states of matters and some of their properties.)  The heavier stuff was made of iron and nickel and formed the core of the earth.  

Because the book gave the nomenclature already, I didn’t go into too much details like the presentation.  I considered it a success the children weren’t running around today blowing balloons while I was talking.  My mistake is always letting them see the balloon and touch the balloon BEFORE the presentation.  They can’t sit still.

We blew up a balloon and smeared vaseline all over the ballon.  The vaseline is the mantle of the earth.   We then put flour, which is the crust, on top.

We then let the air out slowly to signify what happens when the earth cooled.  The crusts came together, hardened and also formed mountains.

The children got to blow up their own balloons today because we had 3 families instead of the typical 5.  There were enough balloons to go around.  Some kids even repeated the exercise.

Presentation #2

Materials: flour, tray, straws.

After cleaning up the mess of gooey flour and vaseline, we moved outside for our second presentation.  I got the idea from my volcano book.  It’s an old Chinese book published by National Geographics that I bought from Mollie in Taiwan.  Kept the kids occupied for 30 minutes.

You shape a pile of volcano from flour.

Stick a bubble tea straw straight the middle.  slowly withdraw.

Stick a smaller straw through the side of the volcano, it doesn’t need to hit the empty space.

Blow!

You’re supposed to ask the children, why does the flour blow a certain direction and why does it sometimes go up high and sometimes not as much?  The answer is the wind and the force (pressure) of the flour/lava.

Vocabulary

The Chinese vocabulary for the parts of the earth is hard.  I don’t know how much they’re going to remember when they grow up.  One thing to note is that Taiwanese Chinese has a different way of saying mantle than China Chinese.

• inner core – 內核 nei4 he2
• outer core – 外核 wai4 he2
• mantle – 地函 di4 han2
• asthenosphere – 軟流圈 ran3 liu2 quan
• lithosphere – 岩石圈 yan2 shi2 quan
• crust – 地殼 di4 ke2