About the product

One of our favourite activities here at Rock Education. The lesson stemmed from watching a documentary on the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption, and the appearance of the now famous Harry Trueman.

Harry Trueman owned a tourist lodge at the foot of Mt St Helens on the edge of Spirit Lake. He stubbornly refused to leave the exclusion zone when the authorities asked him. He ultimately paid for that decision with his life. The mystery question asks "why did Harry Trueman die?" Other mystery questions are included and can be adapted accordingly.

The students must then work in groups and create a "stairway to heaven". Basically this means laying out a maximum of 10 (from 50) mystery cards in a diagnal line, with the most important at the top of the stairway. Invariably all the class goups have something different and this stimulates a very healthy discussion as to why Harry perished. With some sombre reflections and fun activities this lesson stirs a range of emotions and it is definately one the students never forget.

Accompanying this is a worksheet based on the eruption of Mount St Helens that acts as a quick revision guide. This was based on the channel 4 documentary "Going Critical". You will also get the lesson objective stickers that can be stuck into student exercise books.

Package contents

Harry Trueman key questions (word), lessonobjective stickers (word), Mount St Helens revision notes sheet (pdf) and the Harry Trueman mystery (pdf)

Screenshot of the revision sheet