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Volcanoes in STEM- Resources for Busy Teachers

Volcanoes are fascinating and students love reading about them and creating scenes of eruptions! I have so many resources about volcanoes to share with you!

Have you ever seen a live volcano? I was fortunate to visit the Big Island in Hawai’i about three years ago. We were not able to visit Mauna Loa due to snow blocking the roadway! We did visit Mt. Kilauea and the Volcanoes National Park and it was spectacular!

Right after we returned from that trip I started creating Escape Room resources and a teacher requested one about volcanoes! How fabulous was that!

You might also know that Mt. Kilauea had quite a destructive flow that covered roads and burned houses in 2018. I updated the Volcano Escape Room at that time to account for changes due to that eruption. 

Volcanoes resource round-up- This post features a Volcanoes Escape, Volcanoes reading passages, a flip booklet, and a Volcanoes STEM Challenge. Perfect for volcanoes Week!

How Many Ways Can I Save You Time?

Don’t you love it when you find what you need and it is already made for you? I have:

  • Volcano Escape Room
  • Volcano STEM Challenge
  • Rocks and Minerals Task Cards
  • Volcano Flipper Booklet
  • Volcano Print and Read- Reading Passages

Escape Room for Volcano Week

This Escape Room was requested by a customer and turned out to be a class favorite! #winwin

Volcanoes Escape Room –Students complete three tasks finding clues to open locked boxes. The resource includes a “paper” locking system you can try instead of boxes with real locks. After escaping, students will design a volcano with the STEM Challenge included in this resource.

In this Locked-Box event students complete tasks to determine a lock code that opens the boxes. Each unlocked box contains the next task. After unlocking the third box, students have escaped! The first task uses a map grid and students find themselves looking at a photo of a volcanic beach. (photo was taken by me) The second task is to complete math problems to determine the lock code.

The third task involves putting together a puzzle. Each task also has students reading from a Hawai’i Information card to find clues. Think about it! That’s map skills, math, problem-solving, reading, collaboration, and fun all rolled into one event.

The resource includes everything you will need to make this successful. This includes a detailed teacher’s guide for each task and a photo page with a step-by-step solution of how students will determine the code.

Naturally, the culminating project for this Escape Room is a STEM Challenge! Yes, volcanoes in STEM Class!

Volcano STEM Challenge

This challenge is perfect to use at the end of the Volcano Escape Room. It is a simple idea, but I added a twist to it. (Of course!)

STEM featuring volcanoes - students design a volcano model that must hold a container for a chemical reaction that will create a “lava flow”. The placement of the container is important!

I wanted students to create a volcano model that we could test with vinegar and baking soda.

But I wanted them to be creative and have a purpose for the challenge. So, I built a model first just to see what would make the best flow of “lava”.

I discovered the flow depends on the placement of the baking soda container. This became the challenging part of this project!

The deeper the container the less the lava will flow. Too close to the top keeps you from seeing the spectacular rise of the lava.

So, this made the challenge interesting! Students had to build the model and place the baking soda cup at just the right spot for the best effect. But, let’s make it even more interesting! I put out an array of materials and let students choose what they needed to design the models. Ok, let’s make it even better- what if teams had to pay for the materials? And stay under a budget?

They LOVED this challenge! The best part was at the end. Each team presented their model and then I poured in the vinegar so we could watch the eruptions!

Volcano Nonfiction Task Cards (It’s Volcano Week!)

This set of nonfiction text features task cards is all about rocks and minerals. Students will have a “newspaper” with articles about rocks, minerals, and landforms. The text features are labeled.

Volcanoes Task Cards! There are 52 task cards featuring reading comprehension and use of nonfiction text features. Four magazine style reading pages are included!

The task cards feature questions about the text features and their purpose. There are also basic reading comprehension and identification questions.

TIP: Print the newspaper in color to display and use the black/white version to print for students.

Volcano Flipper Booklet

I love Little Flipper booklets! The small booklet works perfectly to get students involved in writing, labeling, sketching, and research. This one is about volcanoes! And, use it works perfectly in STEM Class!

Flip Book featuring volcanoes - students create a mini-booklet all about volcanoes. The colorful finished product will be a great resource for assessment after your unit on volcanoes.

In this flipper students will:

  • Label the layers of the earth
  • Illustrate three or four kinds of volcanoes
  • Label a volcano cross-section
  • List facts about two volcanic rocks kinds of volcanoes
  • Label a volcano cross-section
  • Match words and meanings
  • Complete research about volcanoes

Such a fun way to complete a study and in the end students have the flipper booklet to save!

Here’s another way to add Volcanoes in STEM -Volcano Reading

This reading passage set is perfect for quiet time, sub days, assessments, and centers.

Volcanoes Reading Passages! The resource includes 4 reading passages and a magazine page featuring more volcanoes articles. Each passage has comprehension questions. Highly engaging!

The reading passages are about the dangers of volcanoes, how magma is formed, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, and the Ring of Fire. In addition, you have a magazine page of articles to read. The articles are about the three kinds of volcanoes and how islands are formed. The magazine page also features a cross-section of a volcano. Text features are used throughout the set.

And, of course, I included answer keys!

No matter which resource you choose it will be a sure-fire winner with your students during Volcano Week! Click on the images to see more details!

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