How to Survive a Volcanic Eruption – How 3D Printing can Help Introduce Students to Hazard Mapping

Abstract:

One of the challenges faced when carrying out outreach activities is the variety of backgrounds that the students participating in the activities come from. Consequently, it may be difficult to come up with an activity that will be both challenging and easy to understand for all participants.

As part of a university-wide science festival, we carried out an outreach activity with 13-14 year-old students where we asked them to look at a map and, based on a location for a volcanic eruption, asked them to predict the direction and extent of hazards associated. In previous years, we had found that some students struggled with the activity as they had not been introduced to the concept of the representation of height variation on a map by contours. The focus of some sessions consequently centered on how to read a map rather than the hazard mapping activity we had planned. We decided to change the activity to include 3D printed models to complement the maps, giving a better idea of the shape of the features. An elevation model was converted to a surface mesh file, and to improve visualization for the students a number of models with different vertical exaggerations were created. These models were then printed on desktop 3D printers, both at low resolution to better represent the contours and at high resolution to show a more realistic shape of the land. Giving the students models alongside maps made the activity more accessible to all, and allowed the students to engage more fully in the activity even when the concepts were new to them.