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Whats inside the earth? Create a craft or bake a cake that will help you dig deep into
the mysteries of the earths interior.
First, its time for a short geology lesson. The earth has four layers. The top layer is
the one we live on, and its called the crust . The crust is like the crunchy outside of a
loaf of bread, except that your bread probably doesnt have trees living on it. The
crust is made out of lighter rocks such as granite. All of the rocks, streams,
mountains, and beaches where we see rocks are all part of the crust. The crust is
fairly small when its compared to the other layers of the earth. Its only 3 to 5 miles
deep under the oceans and about 25 miles deep on land. The earths crust is not a
smooth coating on the earth, but its made out of plates that move around. When the
plates move against each other, it causes earthquakes.
The second layer of the earth is just below the crust. Its called the mant le. The
mantle is very thick: 1800 miles deep. The mantle is a little bit like a sandwich. On the top and bottom parts of the
mantle, the rock doesnt move very much. In the middle of the mantle is the ast henosphere. This part of the
mantle moves around fairly slowly. This moving mantle layer pushes the earths plates around.
Next is the core of the earth. The out er core is very hot. It can be up to 9000 degrees F! Inside the outer core,
metals such as iron and nickel move around as liquids.
The inner core of the earth is the center of the earth. All of the rocks on the outside press down on the inside.
The rocks in the core vibrate and are squeez ed together by the other layers. This layer is not as thick as the
other inner layers of the earth. Its 800 miles thick.
Problem:
Create a model of the Earths layers.
Mat erials
Compass White paper
Stapler
Yellow, orange, red, blue, and green modeling clay
Yellow, orange, red, blue, and green pieces of construction paper
Cake mixes (1 white, 1 yellow, 1 red velvet)
Cake pans
Blue and green food dye
White icing
2 bowls
Spoon
Oven
Procedure
1. To help you understand all of the layers, draw a picture of the siz e of the different layers. Using a compass
to help you draw different siz es of circles, draw a very thin crust, the upper mantle, the lower mantle, a thick
outer core, and a smaller inner core.
Crust: Up to 25 miles
Upper mantle: 225 miles
Lower mantle: 1280 miles
Transition between lower mantle and outer core: 700 miles
5. How about baking an earth cake? Create several cakes, each with a different food coloring. Stack them in
layers after youve baked them, putting icing between the layers to help them stick together and on the top
to represent the crust. When you put the cake mixes into the pans to bake, try to use the approximate
dimensions that you calculated above so that the cake layers will be the correct thickness.
Why?
The earth formed from a big cloud of dust and gases. Gradually, the dust and gas came together, forming the
earth. In those early days over 4 billion years ago, the earth was mostly made up of liquid rock in volcanoes and
was pounded by collisions from other things in space. Over time, the earth began to cool, and more solid layers
formed, creating the earths crust.
Sometimes people talk about the earths spheres. The spheres of the earth are a way to describe some of the
different, large-scale types of matter on the earth. There's the at mosphere, which contains layers just like the
earth does. The earths hydrosphere contains the water on the earth. The lit hosphere is part of what youve
been exploring today: it contains the layers of rock closest to the surface of the earth, such as the earths crust.
The ast henosphere is in the upper mantle. Inside each sphere, matter changes from gas to liquid to solid form.
Digging Deeper
How could you adjust your models to show the changes in matter and the different states in each sphere?