Volcano Challenge

Every year during the ‘Hazardous Planet’ unit, we run our Volcano challenge for the Year 9’s. As a department, we decided that the lockdown would not stop this annual competition from taking place and challenged the students to be as creative as they could be and asked them to send us images/ videos of their models. We are delighted with the number of students that have participated in this challenge and the standard has been just as high as it has been in previous years.

We have had students making volcanoes from papier-mâché, builders’ foam, modelling clay and of course, the bakers created volcano cakes! Minecraft has also proved popular this year, perhaps for obvious reasons. There have been models accompanied by excellent Geographical research and erupting models from fireworks to the classic baking soda and vinegar combination.  We knew that some students might not be able to access some of the usual materials used to build a volcano and we have been impressed by the ingenuity and creativity on display (check out Mr Ward’s Highly Commended by Hannah E, for example)!

The department would like to say a massive thank you to all the students who have participated this year- we really appreciate the effort and dedication that has been put into these pieces of work over the May half term!

Classcharts Medals have been awarded to all entries and Head’s Commendations to many. The staff have also picked out three entries for Highly Commended certificates – these will be emailed out to the students and a prize will be given when we return to school!

Headteacher’s Commendations to:

Grace S, Marissa M, Senna H, Katrina N, Mya J, Alice C, Ellie R, Carla D, Aisha W, Olivia S, Mia B, Fareesha K, Charlie L, Chelsea J, Ella McB, Hannah E.

Mr Bowles Highly Commended Certificate – Charlie L – There are a couple of big Minecraft fans in my household so I know how long these creations can take to produce. I also know that making things exactly the way you want to in Minecraft takes more ingenuity and lateral thinking than it might first appear. Charlie had a visible volcano interior and lots of accurate volcanic features labelled. The continuous flow of lava is a nice touch that you can’t achieve with a physical model.

Mr Ward Highly Commended Certificate – I have decided to award my certificate to Hannah E as mentioned above.  Getting resources to build a volcano during lockdown was a challenge to many students but Hannah has persevered and improvised and built hers from cloths, a towel and Lego- I admire her effort! Furthermore, I also like how she has made her volcano erupt from mixing together different ingredients and how she has annotated an image of her work to highlight the key volcanic features. Superb work!

Miss Wignall Highly Commended Certificate – I have gone for Mia B, who created an OUTSTANDING model of Montserrat Island. I was really impressed with the level of detail Mia went into to ensure this model was very precise. She used a projector so that she could stencil the online of the island onto her piece of wood and then used a relief map of Montserrat so that she could build the Soufriere Hills and Chances Peak in the correct location from foam. Mia loves a challenge and took this to the next level by recording herself making the model from start to finish. She talks in her video about why she chose to focus on Montserrat, why she has used the equipment and resources she did, and spoke in depth about the volcanic eruption that took place in 1997 and the impacts that had on Montserrat. To top it off, she had a second eruption volcano model that she made whilst waiting for the first one to dry! Geotastic!!    Click on the link to watch Mia’s YouTube video: https://youtu.be/pL6i0OQJJdQ

Overall winner awarded to Mia B – the dedication, skill and Geographical knowledge on display here blew me away. Very well done, Mia! We hope to display your model in school in the near future.

Mr Bowles

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