JPB wrote:I'm on the fence with this stuff. On one hand, she has no idea if she was just given a load of bull and should verify it for herself. On the other hand, getting the verification means she could have done it herself anyway. If she takes the answers as provided and they're wrong, then it's her own problem. If they're right, then she's now knows of four recent volcanic eruptions -- mission accomplished!
I know what you mean. I think you have to ask yourself, "What is this assignment designed to achieve?" In my days at school, computers weighed several tons and cost millions of pounds. The intention of the teacher, I would guess, is that the student should go to the school library, think about and/or find out where she is most likely to find out about volcanoes. (Hint: it was the geography teacher who set the asignment).
So she goes to the catalogue ("catalog"), and finds out where in the stacks the geography books are. Maybe she even narrows it down a bit. Geology. Maybe she even looks up "Volcanoes". Then she goes to the stacks, takes down a book or two, and discovers the required information. Following this, she writes it up. Along the way, she has found out about the Dewey Decimal Classification, use of library facilities, what an index in a book is for, etc, and practised various skills and procedures to do with "how to find out stuff".
Giving her a potted answer would not build those skills any more than doing somebody's calisthenics for them would build their muscles.
Of course, these days, people have the Internet, and it is possible to take shortcuts. An astute teacher will be aware of the lazier students in the class, and may well smell something fishy if they start turning in surprisingly good assignments.
On the other hand, if somebody asks, "Help me to find the length of a side of a right-angled triangle", it may not do any harm to remind them of Pythagoras' theorem, without, of course, doing the calculation for them.
I think a lot of these "Help me with my homework" type questions are asked at the last minute, with deadlines looming, by students who have not done a stroke of work, who have left it to the last minute, who often have not even the gumption to cheat in the traditional ways (ask a friend, bribe a more studious classmate etc)