Module IV

Explain:

It was fascinating to compare the formation of the Aleutian with the Hawaiian chain of islands both above and below the water.  Thinking about the cultures and islands, they really are very similar. Kodiak is green and remote and due north of Maui.  Kodiak’s police chief and fire chief are both from Hawaii.  We are called the Emerald Isle because we are so pretty and green.  We have lots of waterfalls.  But, alas, we are not volcanic.  I suppose that if there were too many more similarities, Kodiakans would no longer get the PFD.

I never understood the formation of Hawaii.  I knew they grew from volcanoes but  I assumed they were are separate volcanoes.  The crust moving over the hot spot and spreading out the chain makes great sense.  More sense that a hot spot finding new paths and dotting the ocean with new islands.  

Using Google Earth to measure those distance was very interesting.  I looked around for other similar island chains and discovered Fiji from a new perspective.  It looks like they are in the center of a swirling plate.  I wonder if they are over a hot spot as well.  All of those old volcanoes are so interesting.  The subduction zones around the islands makes it look like it is spinning, not moving.  

Then I looked at the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco and I wonder if they were built the same way as Hawaii.  

All this talk of tropical islands makes me want to check Alaska’s web specials for a flight.

Extend:

Kodiak has an interesting geographic history.  I have heard that it was formed by rising crust.  I need to access some local knowledge about this topic.  I will find a geologist in town and find out.  I have fruitlessly searched the web so I must be doing something wrong.  

Evaluate:

My students want to know about their surroundings and what they see and hear about.  So many are connected with this island in so many different ways.  Remote living, fish camps, fishing around for bottom fish, and hunting.  There are so many reasons to understand our geography.  If I am able to get a guest speaker to come in and talk a bit about the island’s formation after we have looked at the resources posted on the course site, the students will have a much better feel for what we are working with here.  I wonder if it might grow into a need for a field trip to Maui.

3 Colleagues’ Blogs:

Janet Reed,

Those pictures are great.  Some of the strange things we get to see and do here are worth some of the little inconveniences.  

Your paragraph about Chenega brings back a conversation from the past.  When we lived on the Yukon, we knew a woman who had grown up in a village that was washed away one year when the river shifted.  There were no plans at the time to rebuild.  When the earth moves, some move with it and others hang on.    

Cheryl Williams,

That photo of the road says a thousand words.  I have seen road closures in California from hill slides caused by earthquakes but nothing like that.  Not a good day to be mountain biking.

Amy Peeke,

I spent a lot of time measuring things with Google Earth too.  That is the coolest tool.  

The shifting crust over the hot spot that made the Hawaiian range is pretty impressive to understand.  It draws a picture on the ocean floor that tells the story beautifully.

David