Landforms, natural hazards, and the change in the Earth over time are common material in state and national standards. Volcanoes exemplify these standards and readily capture the interest and imagination of students. With a minimum of training, students can recognize erupted materials and types of volcanoes; in turn, students can relate these characteristics to eruption violence and potential risk to both nearby and distant populations. With the advent of Google Earth and the database of volcanoes supplied by the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, students can describe almost any volcano on Earth. In this article, the authors guide students to use tools in Google Earth to quantify the characteristics of continuously active volcanoes and synthesize the information to recognize shield volcanoes, strato-volcanoes, cinder cones, and lava domes. (Contains 9 figures.)