The Sleeping Mountain
Scenario by Janice Cooper, revised by Ramya Chari and curated by Dr. Glenn Jaecks (U.C. Davis) - Starting Point page by R. Teed (SERC).
This material is replicated on a number of sites
as part of the
SERC Pedagogic Service Project
This resource received a gold-star rating from a Panel Peer Review
These materials were reviewed using face-to-face NSF-style review panel of
geoscience and geoscience education experts to review groups of resources addressing
a single theme. Panelists wrote reviews that addressed the criteria:
- scientific accuracy and currency
- usability and
- pedagogical effectiveness
Reviewers rated the resources:
- Accept
- Accept with minor revisions
- Accept with major revisions, or
- Reject.
They also singled out those resources they considered particularly exemplary, which are given a gold star rating.
Following the panel meetings, the conveners wrote summaries of the panel discussion for each resource; these were
transmitted to the creator, along with anonymous versions of the reviews.
Relatively few resources were accepted as is. In most cases, the majority of the resources were either designated as 1) Reject or 2) Accept with major revisions.
Resources were most often rejected for their lack of completeness to be used in a classroom or they contained scientific inaccuracies.
This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection
This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
For more information about the peer review process itself, please see https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html.
- First Publication: March 30, 2005
- First Publication: March 30, 2005
- Reviewed: October 22, 2012 -- Reviewed by the On the Cutting Edge Activity Review Process
Summary
In this role-playing scenario, students represent townspeople whose lives and livelihoods are endangered by an active volcano that may or may not erupt in the near future. They must debate whether to invest in or to abandon their town. The site outlines the roles and includes a description of the original, real volcano that inspired the scenario, Mammoth Mountain in California, with a list of links. Before the debate, the students must research monitoring volcano activity and write a paper about it.
Learning Goals
Students will:
- Examine methods used to monitor volcanoes.
- Evaluate the risks of volcanic activity in a fictitious setting
- Experience the ways in which volcanoes affect the lives of the people living near them.
Context for Use
The debate should take one discussion period and student preparation a little longer than that.
Teaching Materials
The Sleeping Mountain scenario is well-developed and includes links, scientific background, and characters. Students will need access to research materials, including Internet-capable computers. It is interesting to compare the resort's Ski Trail Map and the USGS information. Variants of one or both of these should be given to certain students (depending on their perspective of the area).
Teaching Notes and Tips
This exercise is ready to run, although educators may wish to customize the scenario a bit. I would add the USGS Mammoth Mountain Page (more info) to the "required" list.
Assessment
There is a 3-page paper due the day of the debate on volcano monitoring that will help prepare the students. The assignment includes links to helpful advice on writing papers.
References and Resources
An interesting counterpoint to the links about the geologic hazard at Mammoth Mountain provided in the Sleeping Mountain Scenario are these optimistic tourist-business sites. Understandably, none of them mention the active volcano under the resort.
Other approaches to role-playing that involve volcanoes are:
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