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Simple Truths about Volcanoes
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<some description of what this section is about>
(each should be a separate page, with illustrations, suggested class activities, and web source sites). These must be reordered!
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1. Most volcanoes are very much like sleeping (hibernating) animals. They rest most of the time and can sleep for generations. The volcanic areas can be wonderful places to live. But the volcanoes are still alive, and if you can recognize the shape of the volcano, it will probably erupt again.
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2. Volcanoes are easy to recognize. They have very simple forms and anyone can learn where the dangerous places are. Many are hills: Some are pointed hills, some are rounded hills. Some of the most dangerous one are not hills at all, but huge holes with beautiful lakes inside them.
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3. Volcanoes can explode violently and produce showers of hot rock and lots of volcanic ash that can fall. The ash can make the whole sky dark, and can fall out of the sky for hours after an eruption, even at great distances away from the volcano. The ash can kill maize, beans, and coffee; collapse roofs and possibly poison animals and people.
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4. Volcanic eruptions are often, usually, preceded by weeks, months or even years of strange changes that tend to get more numerous and noticeable as the time of eruption approaches. These warning signs are best noticed by the people who live right on the volcano.
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5. Living on volcanoes can be great blessings because volcanic soils, especially those that formed on recently erupted materials, are the richest of all. Volcanoes are directly responsible for most of the unique quality of the cash crops in El Salvador and Guatemala, and they also provide much of the electric power in both countries.
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