Hello David - Sounds like the students will hopefully have an interesting lesson. I think some of these questions are more suitable, and some are more do-able, if that makes sense. Regarding question one - how many active volcanoes per sq km in Alaska vs other states - this is tricky on several levels. One: how do you define "active"? We here at AVO have a list of criteria for determining whether or not a volcano is active, but other states/observatories define that term differently. Even going by straight-up "historical eruption, and eruption means magma made it to the surface" would be tricky as Alaska's historical record is shorter than other areas. The other part of this question would likely mislead students - Alaska's area is much larger than other states, and would likely lead to a misrepresentation of Alaska not having many volcanoes, when in fact 3/4 of the United States volcanoes that have erupted in the past 200 years are in Alaska. Thinking about question 2:This is very do-able. And leads to interesting thoughts about eruption frequency, and what might cause apparent increases in eruptive activity, and what is statistically significant - I've got a now-out-of-date bar graph on the topic here: http://www.avo.alaska.edu/faq.php (figure is in this link - not sure why it isn't on the faq page anymore - I'll look into it) http://www.avo.alaska.edu/images/image.php?id=14050 Your question 3, about a correlation between plate boundary and how active an Aleutian volcano might or might not be is one that AVO geoscientists are actively studying. I'll send you a PDF in a separate email. There are a lot of research questions here, but they might not be very accessible to your students, especially as determining distance from the subducting slab is a little tricky. Years since last eruption is a particularly sticky way of representing how "active" a volcano is, as there are things like Katmai (had the largest eruption of the 20th century in 1912 and nothing since - but that's nothing to sneeze at!). There's also a guidebook for teachers about Alaska volcanism that might help you: http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/99/ , especially the activity on graphing magma compositions and eruptive styles. You could also develop a lesson about eruption magnitude and explosivity (VEI scale) and have students graph how many at each VEI for Alaska and for other regions, or determine average VEI for several volcanoes, and discuss why an average VEI might or might not be a helpful metric. I think there's a VEI exercise in the guidebook, too, but you could certainly make it more data-driven. These are the ideas that I've got off the top of my head - if you have further questions, send an email or call us up. Contact info is below. Thanks, Cheryl Cameron -------- David Dyer wrote: Hello! I'm an EdTech coach (I help science teachers by developing and modeling lessons that utilize technology) and I am creating a lesson to teach excel skills to a group of Jr. High students. I need help developing questions and/or finding data sets. Here are some of my first draft ideas: 1) How many active volcanoes per sq./km in Alaska vs. other states. (research and make a bar graph) 2) How many eruptions happen in Alaska each year (teach averages. 3) Is there a correlation between proximity to the plate boundary and the activeness of Aleutian volcano (get distance in km from Google Earth and years since last eruption) My ideas are so-so. I need some ideas for questions that need data to answer them while also teaching meaningful concepts about volcanos. Any help is appreciated! -- Cheryl Cameron Geologist, Alaska Volcano Observatory Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys voice: 907-451-5012 fax: 907-451-5050