Sometimes I need to get the student’s attention at the beginning of the lesson.  Sometimes I need to get their attention back so we can go on with the activity or another activity. Here’s one way I do it. I show the video clip of Dante’s Peak from Youtube that shows a volcanic eruption with an ash cloud. It’s Hollywoodized but it gets their attention.

Then, I tell the story of Pompeii, the ancient Roman city where everyone died when a volcano erupted and buried everyone under ash. Thousands of years later when the city was rediscovered, they found empty spaces in the ash and figured out that was where bodies had been. They filled the empty spaces with plaster and were able to see the where the person was when they died, how tall they were etc. I tell the students they can see the plaster bodies on Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii