Eruption Day

There are a few days in the school calendar the boys circle in their plan books:  the Fridays before winter and spring breaks, the day of the skating party, the day the raffle winners are announced, and for the fifth graders, the day their volcano models erupt.  On January 8 the boys in V Brady finally got to see their volcano models do what they were built to do…explode with lava; well, actually a safer lava-like substance created when Mr. Parson mixed hydrogen peroxide and potassium iodide.  The models were designed on real-world volcanos, which the boys were assigned to research.  After an oral report presented by each team to the class about their volcano’s characteristics, complete with a homemade travel brochure, Mr. Parsons added the volatile liquids into the mouth of each structure and the class shrieked with wonderment as the foamy substance burst toward the ceiling of the science room and then oozed out.  There were six eruptions in all and the boys seemed just as awed with each successive explosive discharge.  Many thanks to Mr. Parsons for the fiery class lesson.