Sample Lesson

Lesson Activity: The Circle of Fire

Using a world atlas to look at, have the student draw the continents that surround the Pacific Ocean into his main lesson book. This will require two blank pages side by side. The continents can be simple shapes. The continents can be shaded with a green color pencil, the sea with blue pencil. Now locate the volcanic mountains that form the “great circle of fire.” The circle of fire may describe a great “wound” in the earth where the moon once separated itself from the earth.

Now locate these mountains and draw them with red and orange. The student should also label the ocean, seas, islands, and some of the countries. The following list names some of the prominent volcanoes in the ring of fire. There are hundreds more however.

Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen in California Mt. Hood in Oregon,
Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helen’s in Washington;
Wrangell Mountains in Alaska and the Katmai and Novarupa volcanoes
El Chicon, Jorullo, and Pricutin in Mexico
Nevado del Ruiz in Columbia
Cotopaxi in Ecuador; Huascaran in Peru
Aconcagua in Argentina
Mount Pinatubo, Hibok Hibok and Mayon in the Philippines
Mt. Tambora and Krakatau in Indonesia; Semeru in Java
Mt. Fuji and Mt. Asama in Japan
Hawaii
Mt. Erebus in Antartica
Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano in Kamchatka
Mount Egmont in New Zealand aka Mount Taranaki