The essays on this page have been provided by a wide cross section of Bermuda's school children as their contribution to Education Month. Every Thursday throughout February, The Royal Gazette , in conjunction with the Department of Education, will present a page of students' work.

When the volcano erupted, it blew its top and it exploded with a shower of bombs and then lava flowed down the sides of the volcano in red hot rivers.

Steam, gas, ash, and dust shoot out of the volcano up into the atmosphere.

Inside the volcano, the magma chamber fills up with magma and explodes under pressure.

The temperature of magma is over one-thousand degrees Celcius. The magma comes from the inner core which is at the centre of the Earth. A volcano gets formed when cracks form in the Earth's crust.

Magma gets forced up through the crack by pressure. When the magma bursts out, the Earth spits fire. The magma and lava burns down the trees, houses, buildings, and everything in its path.

The lava flows down the sides of the volcano very fast, then it cools off and goes solid and then it turns back to rock. If lava flows into the ocean it makes the water turn to steam and makes a hissing sound.

A huge cloud of steam rises up into the sky. Volcano's can erupt under water in the ocean and they grow up and stick out of the water. Then the volcano stops erupting and forms an island.

First sand collects on the rock, then dirt and then birds drop seeds and the rain waters the seeds. Plants grow from the seeds and turn into trees. Birds and caterpillars and bugs and insects live in the trees. That's how Bermuda was formed.

Then people came to Bermuda in ships and they brought a lot of stuff. They built houses and buildings and towns. The people caught pelagic fish and demersal fish to eat.

They planted vegetables and fruits and that's what they ate. Some men caught whales with a harpoon and they turned the blubber into oil. They put the blubber in a big pot and boiled it until the oil came out.

They used the oil for lamps so they could see where they were going at night.

The first people in Bermuda were called the Early Settlers.

Patrick Alan Dyer Age: 8 years Class P3 West Pembroke Primary School ALL STEAMED-UP -- New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu explodes with plumes of ash, steam, and rock. The volcano roared into life in June of last year, after months of silence.