Volcanoes

Preparation and Planning

You will need to ensure that you have the facility to project PowerPoint Slides and Video footage in the classroom. It might also be worthwhile arranging the classroom so that the students can be easily divided into pairs (or groups of three if necessary) for Episode 2. The cards needed for Episode 3 are included on Student Worksheet 4. However, they will need to be cut out (and possibly laminated for future use) before being distributed.

About the MOD Topic

It is believed that the first person to discover Ascension island was Joao da Nova, a Portuguese explorer who came across it in 1501 but did not report it. Alphonse d'Albuquerque, a Portuguese navigator, saw the island on Ascension Day in 1503 and named it accordingly. The island was dry and barren with little appeal for passing ships except for collecting fresh meat. Mariners could hunt for the numerous seabirds and the enormous female green turtles who laid their eggs on the sandy beaches. The Portuguese later introduced goats to provide an alternative source of meat for future mariners.

In February 1701, HMS Roebuck, commanded by William Dampier, sunk in a bay to the northwest of the island. Some sixty men succeeded in surviving for two months until they were rescued. Almost certainly, after a few days they found the strong water spring in the high interior of the island, in what is now called Breakneck Valley.

Ascension Island became inhabited in 1815, when the British garrisoned it (i.e. stationed troops there) as a precaution after imprisoning Napoleon I on nearby St Helena to the Southeast. The Royal Navy officially designated the island as a stone frigate, 'HMS Ascension', with the classification of 'Sloop of War of the smaller class'.

The location of the island made it a useful stopping point for ships and communications. The Royal Navy used the island as a victualling station (place for ships to restock on supplies), used mostly by the West Africa Squadron which was working against the slave trade. A garrison of Royal Marines was based at Ascension from 1923.

Ascension Island has been used for military purposes since the Second World War when the United States Government, by arrangement with Her Majesty's Government, built an airstrip called 'Wideawake Field', named after a species of bird indigenous to the island. From 1943-45 over 25,000 US planes transited Ascension Island destined for the North African, Middle East and European theatres of war. In 1957 a US presence was re-established and the airfield enlarged. Consequently it became the Southeast tracking station of the USAF Eastern Test Proving Ground.

In 1982 the island was re-garrisoned by British Forces to support operations in the Falkland Islands. Situated approximately half way between the UK and the Falklands, Ascension Island became a key logistical base for troops heading for the war and consequently the island was used as a staging post for the British Task Force throughout the war. The first British air attacks of the conflict were launched from Ascension Island on 1 May 1982 when a fleet of RAF Vulcan bombers and Victor tankers made the 12,500 km (8,000-mile) round-trip to target Port Stanley in Operation 'Black Buck.' The RAF also used the base to supply the Task Force. Because of the increase in air traffic during the war, Wideawake was the busiest airfield in the world for a short period. The Royal Navy's fleet stopped at Ascension for refuelling on the way. Following the war, the British retained an increased presence on the island, establishing RAF Ascension Island, and providing a refuelling stop for the regular airlink between RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, and RAF Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands. A former feature of Ascension was the permanently moored 70,000 tonne tanker offshore run by the Maersk Co (UK) which served as a bulk fuel facility but in December 2002 this was replaced by an on-shore Petroleum Supply Depot under MOD management.

Ascension remains the intermediate stop for UK military flights between the United Kingdom and the Falklands. As such it is one of the main gateways to the outside world for Saint Helenians who travel to and from St Helena on the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) 'Saint Helena'.

Further Opportunities for Learning

Ask students to use the internet to research either the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens in the USA or the 2008 eruption of Chaitİn in Chile.

Students can then be asked to write a 200 word report on the events building up to the eruption and the affects it had on its surroundings and the local people.

This could be developed into a creative writing exercise with students imagining that they live in a town near the volcano and writing a first person description of the eruption.

Student worksheet answers

Download the teachers notes PDF to access the answers for this lesson.