Nancy Drew: Doggone Town - Graphic Novel

Nancy Drew: Doggone Town is written by Stefan Petrucha and Sarah Kinney, and illustrated by Sho Murase. One night, there is a bad storm and the power goes at at Nancy's home. She discovers a lost dog named Togo from Nevershare. The next day, Nancy and her boyfriend, Ned, return the dog home only to find the whole town is abandoned. When they arrive at the owner's house, Byra, she tries to rush them off. Togo bites her and runs away into the woods. Byra will not let Nancy and Ned get anywhere near the woods. She tells them to leave and never come back. They wait until after dark to search for clues. In the cemetery they find a tombstone for Byra so they believe that the woman they met was a ghost. In town, the see an invitation to a party to be held in a cave. They find the cave but it turns out to be fake and made a plastic. They later find the real cave and Nancy goes inside to explore while Ned goes for help. She finds the local townspeople trapped inside. She discovers that "Byra" is actually Myra, Byra's sister. When Byra died she left her land to Myra who discovered the crystal cave. She wanted to open the cave to tourists and sent the townspeople in to make sure it was safe but it ended up not being safe. Myra built the fake cave to show investors how safe it was so that she could turn it into a tourist hot spot. Ned returned with the police who arrested Myra and saved the townspeople. 

With this book the students could study caves. They could pretend to be detectives and research how they would know which cave is fake and which one is real. They must use the information they find out to prove that the real cave is legitimate. I would design two caves and have pictures with facts listed. One would have facts about that would be true about caves, stalagmites, and stalactites while the other would not. The students would have to provide research through websites and books about why the statement was truthful or not. For example, in the book, Nancy knew the first cave was fake because the minerals were so smooth and flaky.  A real cave's minerals are more course and hard.