Ambleside Online Year 7 Highlights

Year 7 has finished up for the seventh time in our home, although this was only the second time we've used Ambleside Online for Year 7.  As I usually do, I asked my daughter which books were her favourites from this year's work, but I gave her a limit of ten. These are the books she chose:

I read aloud The Brendan Voyage, The Daughter of Time, and All Creatures Great and Small (which we are only half way through. It’s an omnibus edition and isn't scheduled in AO year 7.) She read the others on her own. The Magna Carta was a book we had that I added in - she really enjoyed this. The Daughter of Time and Fallacy Detective sparked a lot of interest, conversation, and ‘that’s a red herring’ type of comment on a regular basis!

As I mentioned, this is the second time we've done AO Year 7, and when I asked my next child up, Benj, who did Year 7 in 2014, what books were highlights for him. These are the books he chose:

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy
Ivanhoe
Watership Down
The Age of Chivalry
Eric Sloane's Weather Book
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Talisman
Hereward the Wake
The Birth of Britain 

They almost have opposite tastes in reading. Ivanhoe, Watership Down, and Eric Sloane's Weather Book were not among Moozle's favourites and she still hasn't read The Talisman because she says she does not like Sir Walter Scott. Actually The Talisman was everyone else's favourite Scott novel.
Moozle loved the science selections but Eric Sloane's Weather Book went above her head at times - it was one of Benj's favourites. He didn't care for The Life of the Spider by Fabre (we have one of the world's deadliest spiders in our area so that probably didn't help) but Moozle got right into it and just about every reading was accompanied by a science journal entry.
However, they both loved The Lord of the Rings trilogy!

This verse from Ecclesiastes, that Charlotte Mason quotes in Volume 6, is very apt:

'In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.'

Ecclesiastes 11:6

One child may imbibe certain ideas from a book, while a different child won't, but we can't predict what ideas will inspire them. Our job is to provide a wide variety of books the same way we would provide food for a scrumptious smorgasbord. I've been quite surprised at some of the books that have been the trigger for ideas; books that I wouldn't have expected to charm them, but they have. Having children who've had almost opposite reactions to books has made this observation even more apparent to me:

Education is a life. That life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin...we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food. Probably he will reject nine-tenths of the ideas we offer, as he makes use of only a small proportion of his bodily food, rejecting the rest. He is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; our business is to supply him with due abundance and variety and his to take what he needs...out of a whole big book he may not get more than half a dozen of those ideas upon which his spirit thrives; and they come in unexpected places and unrecognised forms...

A Philosophy of Education, Pg. 109

I don't think a child has to love a book. They might find it difficult, and we may be tempted to drop it, but there needs to be some books that make them work a bit harder, build some more muscle, or they won't grow. It's not a cruel & unusual punishment to require them to persevere.

Many children are fussy eaters but we don't allow them to just eat junk because that's what they like & it will help avoid conflict for us if we just give them what they desire. If a child is sick or is convalescing, we make allowances by giving them the food they desire, within reason, but a well and healthy child doesn't get the same treatment.

A child may not be ready for some of the ideas presented in a book, but they will seize some of them while others may give them a foretaste that could develop at a later time. Smoked salmon, haloumi, and blue vein cheese might be passed over for other better known foods the first or second time around, but then one day they decide to try them and find they are very moreish. The other thing we need to consider is if overall the material is at a suitable level for them. If every book is difficult, perhaps we need to rethink our choice of books or grade level. 

Something I've made a point of doing this last year is to stretch Moozle's reading so that she's just not reading books with lots of action. She is a good reader but doesn't like slow books. A couple of those books I've mentioned towards the end of this post.

Other Highlights From This Year

In my original plans for Moozle's Year 7, I mentioned we were doing Apologia's Anatomy & Physiology. We finished that and then continued with The Way We Work by David Macaulay. Moozle loves Macaulay's illustrations in this book and I was surprised at how in depth the text is.

This section covered lipids and Macaulay used a number of technical terms that she wasn't familiar with. I found a video on lipids to help out. We'll be continuing with this book in Year 8.

A notebook page 

When my children get to about 15 or 16 years of age, I have them do a Senior First Aid course. In the past I've organised this and opened it up to some other families with older children & it's an intensive 2 day course. A few months ago, a homeschooling friend organised a course that ran over 4 weeks, one afternoon per week. Both Moozle and I did the course (a refresher for me) & I thought that spreading it out over a month was a good way to do it. There is so much information and doing it this way was much easier & left more time to let it all soak in.

Another focus this year was on Natural History Illustration which I wrote about here and here.

Handicrafts - the past few months have been devoted to patchwork and quilting. This is her major project.

Cello - this year she's preparing for the AMEB Grade 7 exam and has also had the opportunity to play in church a few times.

On the family front, the role of Aunty has come very naturally & she is a favourite with her little niece. We're all looking forward to the birth of our son and his wife's first child due in October and the wedding of our second daughter in September.

Some of Moozle's reading this year:

The Refugees by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 'Quite a good book but the main character behaved stupidly at times. Conan Doyle tends to make the Frenchmen excitable little wimps, while in books like this the Frenchmen always think the English are calm cool and collected, with no emotions whatsoever.' 4 out of 5

Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore - scheduled in AO Year 8 as a free read. 'It took ages to get into the book, rambled on at times, but it was a good story.' 4 out of 5

An illustrated kindle version is here.

The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper - set during the American Revolutionary War and written by an author who lived around that time period. This was Moozle's first book by Cooper and she didn't mind it, but I think she'll appreciate some of his other books a bit more later on. 3 out of 5

Midwinter by John Buchan - a little different to his Richard Hannay series. Midwinter is a tale of the  Jacobite rising set in 1745. John Buchan always gets a good rap in our house. 4½ out of 5:

'The Jacobite army marches on into England and Alastair Maclean, close confident of Charles Edward Stewart, embarks on a secret mission to raise support for the cause in the west. He soon begins to suspect someone close to the Prince is passing information to the Government, but just as he closes in on the traitor his own life is put in danger.'

The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley - this is a series that Moozle has enjoyed for a few years now and she added a couple more to her collection recently. 4½ out of 5.  

I've been thinking about the next year's work and my plan is to cover AO Years 8 & 9 over eighteen months. I have a couple of reasons for this. One is that the school year here in Australia goes from February to December with a fairly long break over Christmas. We've never followed the school terms but I'm finding more and more that our outside activities do. Just about everything shuts down for the school holidays and the Christmas break and we often end up catching up with people during the official school holidays. There's also much less traffic at those times so it's easier to get out and about.

The other reason is so that Moozle isn't straddling two years - she started Year 7 in the middle of last year. At the end of next year she will have completed Year 9 and then she'll start Year 10 at the beginning of the next year...if that makes sense!  Anyhow, that's the plan & I'm looking at the AO schedule here - starting at Week 25, which will take us through to the end of the year and then continuing with this next year. So instead of doing AO Years 7, 8, & 9 in two years, we'll be doing Years 8 & 9 in one and a half years. Clear as mud?

Edited to add our weekly schedule. This is what I've done for many years - give the schedule out at the beginning of the week and let them decide which books to do each day. I check each day to see what's been done and if I find they've gotten a bit lax, I'll give them a list of things I'd like completed. Each of my children has had a preference for certain subjects so I make sure they haven't left things out and if they have, get them to attend to it the first thing the next day. 
They have all tended to like doing a book chapter in one hit & not spreading it out over a week - even the longer reads such as Churchill's Histories.

My original plan for Moozle's Year 7 - I made some modifications especially with Devotional reading and Science. 

Highlights from Term 1

Australian content

Apart from what I mentioned in my original plans, Moozle read & re-read some Australian titles this year. Many of the books I want to use I've either used in earlier years or plan to use later on when she's a little older. I picked up a couple of Nan Chauncy books we didn't have, Tiger in the Bush & Tangara and she read those but they were easy for her. 
The Silver Brumby series are some she re-read and enjoyed doing so. They are excellent reading.

I have a page at the top of this blog where I record some of the Australian titles we've read.

My Homeschool has some options for Australian families that includes assistance for those needing to register with the government.

In Defence of Old Science Books

A common charge against Charlotte Mason educators is that we use too many old books. When it comes to teaching science, this objection is even more vehement. How can you teach science using books that were written ten, twenty, thirty or worse still, over a hundred years ago?
Yes, we do tend to use older books but that's not because older books are intrinsically better than more modern titles. There are plenty of dud older books that we'd never use for the good reason that they aren't well-written. The reason we'd choose an older book over a more recent is because it has a literary approach, i.e. it presents facts that are clothed in literary language.
More and more, education has become utilitarian in its approach, and this is reflected in the teaching of science and the content of the books that are used. David Hicks made this observation:

'...as science took a technological turn and as education began preparing students for work rather than for leisure, for the factory rather than for the parlor, the school itself came to resemble the factory, losing its idiosyncratic, intimate, and moral character...
In its utilitarian haste, the state often peddles preparation for the practical life to our young as the glittering door to the life of pleasure; but by encouraging this selfish approach to learning, the state sows a bitter fruit against that day when the community depends on its younger members to perform charitable acts and to consider arguments above selfish interests.'

Norms & Nobility by David Hicks

When a book is too direct and factual there's the possibility that the student may not appropriate the material.
I've thought about this not only in relation to my children but also to my own reading. Some thoughts on uniting the literary & the scientific here.

Of course some things will have changed from when a science book was first written, but we could say that about a science text that was written a year ago. There are ways to bring the knowledge up to date without too much trouble while still giving your student the foundational concepts padded out in a literary medium. YouTube videos are one way that's worked well for us. The chapter from the book is read first and then an appropriate video is shown after that.
We take care that:

'...all knowledge offered him is vital, that is, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas.' 

Towards a Philosophy of Education, pg xxx

Some of the science books I've been using this year for my 13 year old daughter are in the 'old' category. Some are more modern, but they are all good. The first three book below are scheduled for Year 7 (Form III) at AmblesideOnline.


The Life of the Spider by Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1910)

Notebook page for The Life of the Spider 

The Wonder Book of Chemistry by Jean Henri Fabre - translated into English in 1922

These two books by Fabre are my daughter's favourites. Interestingly, Fabre was not only a scientist but a poet (see a short bio here). Charlotte Mason said of French scientists that,

'...they perceive that as there is an essence of history which is poetry so there is an essence of science to be expressed in exquisite prose.'

 Notebook page after reading Chapter 17 of The Wonder Book of Chemistry

 

I've used some of the University of Nottingham's Periodic Table of the Elements to not only bring some of the concepts in The Wonder Book of Chemistry (and other books we've used in the past couple of years) up to date but also to see demonstrations of science experiments that we wouldn't be able to perform safely at home.

Eric Sloane's Weather Book (1952)

The BBC's Wild Weather series narrated by Richard Hammond have been helpful with Sloane's book which on the surface looks simple enough but contains some difficult topics where a visual or simulated demonstration is helpful.

Architecture Shown to the Children by Gladys Wynne (1913)

This year we started Architectural Science and Gladys Wynne's book is our primary text. I've added in a couple of other books we have that relate to the science behind architecture such as String, Straightedge, & Shadow: The Story of Geometry by Julia E. Diggins (1965)
Although this would be classified as Mathematics and not Science, we're using it alongside the above book as it relates to Architecture in the Ancient World. The Grand Design DVD's are also an enjoyable addition from time to time.

Some examples from Moozle's Architecture Notebook

Secrets of the Universe by Paul Fleisher - this was originally published in 1987 and is out of print but it was re-issued as five separate books in 2002. Moozle is reading this one at present:

This is a series that a few of my children have enjoyed and learnt quite a lot from. Fleisher has explained the concepts well and included experiments that are do-able in the home situation. This was one Moozle did on light reflection last week:

Signs & Seasons by Jay Ryan (2007) is a more recent science publication but I'm supplementing with The Constellations & How to Find Them by Sir William Peck (1942) as he writes from a Southern Hemisphere perspective.

I managed to find a sundial in a local park

Natural Science

The older books really shine with this subject and just about every book I have related to this field is old. I have up to date field guides for studying birds and plants in our part of the world but reading the writing of earlier naturalists is very inspiring. An interesting article I found about this: What Early 20th Century Nature Study Can Teach Us.
Some of the books I use the most are:

Natural History in Australia by William Gillies & Robert Hall (1903)

Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (1911)

Bush Calendar by Amy Mack (1909)

I posted a list of some of these that are available free online here. 

Mother Culture Science


These are some science titles I've read for my own education, or have used with my older children in the high school years. I've linked to reviews I've written on them or where we've used them in high school.

Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sacks (2001) - my own reading and one of my sons read it around the age of 16 years.

Longitude by Dava Sobel (2011) - this was a book I read aloud about 5 years ago to multiple ages

Madame Curie by Eva Curie (1937)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010)

The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James D. Watson (1968)

Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov (1966) - we used this in Years 9-11

Mr. Tompkins Inside Himself by George Gamow & Martynas Ycas (1967)

The following books are medically related, inspirational/devotional & highly recommended:

Fearfully & Wonderfully Made by Philip Yancey & Dr. Paul Band (1980)

Ten Fingers for God by Dorothy Clarke Wilson (1965) - a biography of Dr. Paul Brand

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

For many years scientists had been trying to grow human cells outside of the human body in order to have a continuous (immortal) line of cells that would constantly replenish and that could be used to study any number of things,  especially viruses. Mouse cells had been cultured successfully, but every attempt to culture human cells had failed.
That was, up until 1951. That year, Henrietta Lacks, a 30 year old black mother of five young children, was admitted to the coloured ward of John Hopkins Hospital to have a biopsy of her cervix. A sample of tissue from her cervix was sent to George Gey, the head of tissue culture research at Hopkins.
At that time, if doctors wanted to use tissue from patients for purely research purposes, patient consent was not required, although it is now.
Henrietta Lack's tumour cells were put into culture and they didn't merely survive, but grew like nothing else had before.
The tumour turned out to be a very aggressive form of cervical cancer, and before long, millions of the cells had reproduced themselves in the laboratory. Gey and his assistants had grown the first immortal human cells which they named 'HeLa,' for Henrietta and Lacks. These cells became one of the most important tools in medicine and have been used in the development of the polio vaccine, in gene mapping, cloning, cancer research, and researching the effects of zero gravity and radiation on the human body.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a real page turner of a book and quite fascinating generally.
Rebecca Skloot is a journalist, which partly explains the readability of her book, and also the style in which she writes the story. To me this was both positive and negative. Positive, in that the scientific concepts were explained well enough for a lay person to understand and in a narrative style; negative, where the author injected certain incidents, such as the abuse of Henrietta's children by family members after she died, and other intimate family details, throughout the book.
I wondered whether this was really necessary, but an important aspect of this book is the recognition that behind all the science and research, there are real people. The author certainly portrayed this well.

I'm not American, so I didn't come to this book with any personal background experience of USA race relationships or much knowledge of the history and implications of segregation, therefore my reactions to this book are as an outsider looking in.
I had the impression at times that the culture of Henrietta Lacks' cells and the subsequent profits derived from their use (that the family never benefited from) was blamed for everything that went wrong with the Lacks family afterwards, but there was some serious dysfunction in the family before Henrietta ever went to hospital.
It was tragic that five young children lost their mother, but she had fairly advanced cervical cancer by the time she presented to John Hopkins' Hospital, and the treatment of cervical cancer wasn't clear cut at the time. She had the standard treatment of the time: radium and X-ray therapy. (See my comments on Cancer Ward, set in the 1950's.)
The author reveals scientific research that went beyond the bounds of decency, although not in Henrietta's case: research using cancer cells perpetrated upon unsuspecting black patients (see the infamous Tuskegee Study) that were likened to the Nazi experiments of WWII. Prison inmates were used as human guinea pigs, and the conditions of the 'Negro' mental institution where Henrietta's eldest girl was sent before her mother died were disgusting. Were other mental institutions at the time any better? I don't know.

There were also privacy concerns raised by the family. Henrietta's medical records were released without their consent, and blood was taken from various family members for research purposes without full disclosure. In fact, the family had no idea what was happening.

Henrietta's family were uneducated and ignorant of science so when they found out that her cells were 'alive' it was very confusing for them and this misunderstanding caused them a lot of unnecessary anguish. They thought that parts of her were still alive and that she could feel pain when experiments were performed on her cells.
The family also wondered, if Henrietta had been so important to medicine and scientists were buying her cells, why couldn't the family afford health insurance?
This is one of those areas where science leapt ahead before the ethics had been worked out. And this still happens.
The author included a very informative afterword that addresses tissue research and patient rights at the time the book was first printed in 2009, and gives examples of other individuals who took action against medical practitioners who profited by the sale of their patients tissues.
Fascinating!
Cell research is vital. It needs to be done ethically and in an informed manner, but what a huge can of worms we've opened up!

Some other thoughts:

Henrietta Lacks was an uneducated woman from an impoverished background and like most black patients at the time, she only went to hospital when she thought had no other choice. As I mentioned above, there had been some very unethical research conducted at the Tuskegee Institute, and other incidents, that generated suspicion of the medical profession amongst black communities.

Many doctors back then used public patients for research, generally without their knowledge - these patients were being treated for free so it was considered fair enough to use them as research subjects.

In the 1950's "benevolent deception" was commonly practiced and so it was not uncommon for patients to have no idea of their diagnosis, especially if it was something as distressing as cancer. This was also the practice in the USSR in the book I mentioned above.

Henrietta was not told that her cells were replicating themselves in a laboratory and her family only found out inadvertently about twenty years later. By this time HeLa cells were a huge business and were sold and sent all over the world.

When the family realised that people were making money out of their mother's cells, they became angry, especially when they couldn't even afford medical insurance.

At the time this book went to press, blood samples and body bits taken during procedures such as removal of moles, ovaries, appendices, and tonsils - which are given voluntarily - are often kept indefinitely and later used to develop things like vaccines and drugs and no permission is required.

Rebecca Skloot first heard about HeLa cells when she was sixteen and doing a community college biology class. She spent a decade researching Henrietta's background including time spent getting to know Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's daughter, who helped provide much of the information for the book.

The documentary below, The Way of all Flesh was filmed in 1998 and is a very interesting account of the science behind the HeLa cells:





I read somewhere that a version for younger readers was published in 2012: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: The Young Reader's Edition by Gregory Mone, Rebecca Skloot, 256 Pages, Published in 2012, but it looks like it's out of print.

Madame How & Lady Why: Chapter 4 - The Transformation of a Grain of Soil

'Why, you ask, are there such terrible things as volcanos? Of what use can they be?'

The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains, in the Island of St Vincent, at Midnight, on the 30th of April, 1812, from a Sketch Taken at the Time by Hugh P. Keane, Esqre by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Pg 71 - The flow of a lava stream. This BBC site has some spectacular photos of lava flows.

Pg 72-73 - Trees ( I've put some pictures of these plus additional pictures & videos of other subjects on my Ambleside Online board at Pinterest).

Pg 73-74 - Kingsley tells about the threat by the eruption of Mt Etna on the town of Catania in Sicily. The story of Catania is also told by Fabre in The Story Book of Science. Fabre has a kinder attitude to the inhabitants of the town in his rendering of the story.

 Pg 74 - Lava entering the sea Hawaii (or Sandwich Islands as they used to be known).

I posted a video on the Mt St Helen's eruption which showed the damage done by the volcano to the fish population in Spirit Lake: MHLW: Part 3 - Volcanoes.
There are some spectacular photos of lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano as it reaches the sea on this National Geographic website. 

And now you will ask me, with more astonishment than ever, what possible use can there be in these destroying streams of fire? And certainly, if you had ever seen a lava stream even when cool, and looked down, as I have done, at the great river of rough black blocks streaming away far and wide over the land, you would think it the most hideous and the most useless thing you ever saw. And yet, my dear child, there is One who told men to judge not according to the appearance, but to judge righteous judgment. He said that about matters spiritual and human: but it is quite as true about matters natural, which also are His work, and all obey His will.

Pg 75 - The richness of volcanic soils. This short article answers the question of 'Why do people live on volcanoes?' 'Volcanic ash can be considered as a time-release capsule, rich in nutrients.'

Of course, when the lava first cools on the surface of the ground it is hard enough, and therefore barren enough. But Madam How sets to work upon it at once, with that delicate little water-spade of hers, which we call rain, and with that alone, century after century, and age after age, she digs the lava stream down, atom by atom, and silts it over the country round in rich manure. So that if Madam How has been a rough and hasty workwoman in pumping her treasures up out of her mine with her great steam-pumps, she shows herself delicate and tender and kindly enough in giving them away afterwards. 

Pg 78 - The 1812 eruption of St Vincent in the West Indies was witnessed by plantation owner and barrister, Hugh Perry Keane. He recorded his observations in a diary and also made a sketch which was what Turner based his painting above upon.

The Commonwealth

Pg 80 - Madame How's remaking of the land. The book below would be interesting for a child who's not an independent reader. It's recommended for Grades 2 to 4 and is based on the eruption of the Paricutin volcano (the volcano in a cornfield) in Mexico in 1943. I borrowed this book from the library years ago and it was a hit with the boys.

 Pg 77 - Kingsley mentions atoms in a few places and I found this video which gives a simple and clear explanation on atoms, molecules and bonding.


What's all the matter? Atoms and Molecules: Atoms, elements and molecules. Understanding the building blocks of matter.





 Pg 84  - there's a brief mention of millions of years

The Gallery of Natural Phenomena has some topics of general interest relating to what is covered in MHLW.

Paricutin

I forgot to add this video on the rock cycle:


                           

For Resources for Chapter 5 of MHLW, The Ice-Plough see here.

Madame How & Lady Why - Part 3: Volcanoes

'And wherever there are volcanos there will be earthquakes. You may have earthquakes without volcanos, now and then; but volcanos without earthquakes, seldom or never.

How does that come to pass? Does a volcano make earthquakes? No; we may rather say that earthquakes are trying to make volcanos. For volcanos are the holes which the steam underground has burst open that it may escape into the air above. They are the chimneys of the great blast-furnaces underground, in which Madam How pounds and melts up the old rocks, to make them into new ones, and spread them out over the land above.'

Madame How & Lady Why by Charles Kingsley

An 1888 Lithograph of the 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa.

'Cone, crater, lava: those words make up the alphabet of volcano learning. The cone is the outside of a huge chimney; the crater is the mouth of it. The lava is the ore which is being melted in the furnace below, that it may flow out over the surface of the old land, and make new land instead.'

Ambleside Online has a guide by Katie Barr which provides background information on the book and the following are some of the rabbit trails we pursued as we went through Chapter 3 of MHLW which was all about volcanoes. You'll find some information repeated in the different videos and websites but it's a fascinating subject and we thought they were all helpful.

Pg. 49 - Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii (Kingsley refers to Hawaii as the Sandwich Islands, the name given to them by Captain James Cook in 1778).





Volcano 101 - very good; explains the different types of volcanoes; one view of a 'mummy' from the ruins of Pompeii:

What is the common link between earthquakes, volcanoes, and tidal waves? An ABC Splash video with transcript.


Below - good, simple video on how volcanoes are formed and continental drift. One mention of millions of years towards the end.

Geography - Seterra, a free programme that can be used online or downloaded (which is how we use it) has a world mountains and volcanoes map game.

Pg 54 - Mt. Vesuvius

Pliny the Younger, witness to a catastrophe. Great site with two videos of Pliny's observations of the Vesuvius eruption in 79AD.

The destruction of Pompeii - some information at 'Eyewitness to History.'


Short video on Mt Vesuvius facts and narration of Pliny the Younger:




Mt Vesuvius erupts near Naples, Italy in 1944:




Excellent website on the Mt Vesuvius eruption during World War II. Probably of more interest to an older child but I think most boys would love it.

A 2009 aerial view of a very different Mt Vesuvius:

The active volcano island of Krakatoa lies between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Sundra Strait, and is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.

A good video can be found at History.com

This one below is similar:

New Zealand Volcanoes

We were living in New Zealand between the 1995 and 1997 eruptions of Mt Ruapehu. I thought it was bizarre to be playing in the snow on a mountain which had erupted in recent times but my husband, being a New Zealander, took it in his stride. He thinks Aussies are crazy to ski on snow fields that have trees sticking up out of them.
One of his cousins is a volcanologist and it made me feel slightly better that he thought the mountain was safe enough the day we went up. Only slightly. I was making escape plans in my head all the time I was up there.
An article from The Earthquake Commision - Remembering the 1995 Mt Ruapehu Eruption.

The Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science (GNS) has lesson plans and information on the volcanoes of New Zealand and a fact sheet on Ruapehu which is the largest active volcano in NZ.

The Waimangu Volcanic Valley is a geothermal system at Rotorua in the North Island of New Zealand which we visited on our honeymoon. An eerie and beautiful place.

Crater Lakes, Pg 63

 Inferno Crater Lake, New Zealand

When volcanic craters cool down after major eruptions, they often fill with water to form crater lakes. Some are cool, just filled by rain water, while others are warm or hot and remain connected to the volcanic plumbing. The colour of crater lakes varies markedly according to the temperature and chemistry of the water, and the type and concentration of particles suspended within it. 

Mt. St. Helen's Eruption May 18, 1980

A sweep of Cotopaxi (see Pg 60 of MHLW) at 5897 meters. Located in Equador in South America

Cotopaxi is one of South America's most famous volcanoes and one of its most active ones. With its 5911 m it also ranks among the world's highest active volcanoes (26th highest).

Video of Cotopaxi volcano erupting in Ecuador.

New island formed by volcanic eruption, Japan 2013 - video