Digital Magazine Walk through Science Digital Magazine 1st issue WtS | Page 5

Page 5
EXPERIMENTS AND WALKS AT AN ACTIVE VOLCANO:
THE “PITON DE LA FOURNAISE”.
DISCOVER ANOTHER VOLCANO:
THE “PITON DES NEIGES” WHICH IS NO LONGER ACTIVE
On the first day of our scientific journey, we went to an active
volcano called The Piton de la Fournaise. One of our Physics
teachers Corinne was with us : she was our guide for the
walk. It was an outstanding experiment because as she is
also a professional guide she made us disvover the volcano
as we, teachers from Reunion Island, never saw it before.
Most of the time we must follow up the general instructions
about this volcano but that time was different. She explained
us the local plants and how they grow up in this kind of
environement. We discovered a funny plant called “kill your
mother-in-law”. Of course that is not the scientific name of it
but this is the literal translation and we all laughed at it.
We also discovered the instruments scientifics use to check
the activity of the active volcano.
At some specific spot on the volcanic area, we stopped
to discover the differences between the lava flows. The
darker they were, the younger they were. These rocky
landscapes were amazing. We climbed up to the top of
one ancient crater and walked through the endemic
forests near the volcano.
Earlier in the morning, we discovered another volcano
which is no longer active : The Piton des Neiges.
Actually it collapsed many years ago, before the
colonization of the island, and three circuses were
shaped : they were named Cilaos, Mafate and Salazie.
We did not go there but we saw some pictures of it at
the Volcano museum in the afternoon.
For our students, it was the first time they got involved in this
kind of project and they were happy to have the opportunity
to be part of the expedition to the Piton de la Fournaise as
we can see in the following photographs...
BY CATE
LALLEMAND
AND
GUILLAUME
RIVIÈRE
REUNION
Corinne is explainig us the particularities
of the river flowing next to the volcano.
We are standing up before an active
volcano The Piton de la Fournaise.