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| Oldoinyo Lengai, another active volcano in the East African Rift Zone, erupts explosively in 1966. (Photograph by Gordon Davies, courtesy of Celia Nyamweru, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York.) |
Module Orientation
The goal of this module is to familiarize students with the types of natural hazards that exist in Africa through the use of the ArcView Geographic Information System. Data on global earthquakes and volcanoes are presented. Additional data specifically for Africa on recent volcanoes, tsunami events, and fires in Africa are also provided. Data containing information on city populations, population densities, and landcover types are also examined in conjunction with the natural hazards data. The students will use the combination of data layers to assess the risk from natural hazards that exists to cities and countries in Africa.
Prerequisites and Instructions for Teachers
All the data necessary for running this module can be downloaded before beginning each exercise.
It is helpful if the student has had a basic introduction to ArcView, but detailed instructions are provided for bringing the data into an ArcView project and manipulating the data layers. After a procedure is described it is not described in detail again. The student must refer to a previous step or exercise for additional instruction.
The module is designed to be presented to high school students who have had some introduction to plate tectonics and natural hazards. It is also helpful if the students have studied Africa.
Hardware requirements
PC: minimum of 486 PC with 24 MB RAM, running Microsoft Windows 95, 3.1, or NT 4.0
Workstation: DEC, IBM, Sun, Hewlet-Packard, SGI, or Data General with 32 MB RAM, running UNIX
Macintosh: PowerPC, running System 7.1 or higher, with 24 MB of RAM
Software requirements
ArcView GIS Version 3.0 or higher
Getting started
This module contains goals and five exercises.
Exercises and exercise data
The data required to complete the exercises can be downloaded at the beginning of each exercise. To complete the exercises, resize the browser window so that the exercise steps fit alongside the ArcView window on your computer screen. Alternatively, you can print the exercise steps and work from the paper copy.