Assignment: Mount St. Helens Succession Exploration Study the photos you found in your “Mount St. Helens succession photos” search. Scan the photograph you used here. Be sure to submit your photographs, too (i. e. scanned or digital images). Questions 1. In one part of the activity, you looked at photographs and placed them in order. How did you determine the order that the photos should go in? 2. When looking at your pictures in order, describe the changes to the area. What changes happened first? Why do you think that is? 3. The gradual change in an ecosystem in response to environmental change is called succession. From what you have learned, how is Mount St. Helens an example of succession? Explain. 4. Look at time lapse photographs of the Scorch, standing dead forest from 4 and 7 years after the blast on the site http://www. mshslc. org/return-to-life/changing-landsca pe/. By what mechanism do you think these plants arrived in the new area? How did they benefit the ecosystem? 5. Colonizing plants help prepare the soil for the growth of other species of plants Look at time lapse photographs of the Scorch, standing dead forest from 17 and 30 years after the blast on the site http://www. mshslc. org/return-to-life/changing-landsca pe/. Are these different plants than you saw in the photographs from Question 2?