This post was edited by Kevin Murphy on Jan, 2019
Hi Everyone,

Where did the summer go?

I've been going round and round with ideas as to what kind of lesson I want to create. After much discussion with Carla I've settled on a Mt. St. Helens activity.

I haven't had time to actually try the activity yet (ie:downloading the actual images to ImageJ and doing the measurements) but I will experiment with it in the next few days.

Anyways, this is what I have come up with. Any critiquing would be most welcomed. Thanks, Sharon

These are the web sites:

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003100/a003116/index.html

https://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery-detail.asp?name=helens

http:www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/mshelenslidar.html

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/



While learning about the types of volcanoes and the types of eruptions they produce, students will download several images of Mt. St. Helens before the 1980 eruption, after the eruption and present day activity. Students will use imageJ to stack, animate and explore the set of images.

They will measure and analyze the changes that have occured in Mt. St. Helens from 1980 prior to erupting to the present. They will export the measurements as a text file and create a graph in Excel.


Download four to six images of Mt.St.Helens from the above websites.
Open the images into imageJ
Stack and animate the images
Outline the changes that have occured for each image and place in the blank stack
Select 'analyze and measure'
Readjust the threshold for each image as needed
Select 'analyze and measure'
Make the image J results window active and choose 'file - save as' to save he results as a text file
Open text in Excel
Use chart wizard to create a graph of the results


While students are studying the changes in an active volcano they will:
gain an understanding of the inner earth processes
interpert the cause and effects of volcanoes

Hi Sharon, mark here. I have had major set backs and am just now able to access this forum. Anyway, I will be going through your data and putting some thought into your plan. My initial reaction is that this will be a very interesting and engaging use of Image J. Given the strong interest of volcanic eruptions and the mystique of St. Helens, your students should be very interested and engaged. While I try out the images/data, do you have any ideas of what your students might measure? Off the top of my head I would guess that they could measure the amount of material lost in the explosion, the impact of the surrounding biosphere (due to loss of vegetation). Although Image J can help to quantify some of the characteristics of the types of volcanoes (ie: strato-volcanoes are generally the most explosive) you might need some more thought of how the measuements will help with the understandings of the earth processes behinds these events. I will think some more about it and I am sure that Carla, Nick and others will have some constructive ideas as well.