Learning Activity: Eat a Planet!

Plate tectonics is the name given to the study of the movement of the earth’s continental plates that float as a crust on the hot and more fluid mantle below. Scientists frequently use models to study processes like this that are too dangerous, too large or too small to study directly.

Students use models to study how things work as well. Usually this is done as an aid to understanding, rather than to make predictions as a scientist might. The skin of pudding serves as a (delicious) model of plate tectonics. In this activity, you get to have your model and eat it, too!

Materials

• Pudding mix (2 boxes of different colored puddings, for more dramatic effect; just remember to use a bigger pan)
• 2 or more crumbly cookies (graham crackers work well)
• About 1/2 cup confectionary sugar (optional: multicolored sugar sprinkles)
• 8” x 10” baking pan with high sides or an 8” or 9” pie pan
• 2 spatulas - the bigger the better - and 2 spoons

Getting Ready

Follow the directions on the pudding box and begin making the pudding. While one of you stirs the pudding, the other can grind the cookies up into a coarse powder.

Activity: Eat a Planet

1. Pour the pudding into the baking pan or pie pan and sprinkle the confectionary sugar and cookie crumbs across the surface. Try for a uniform spread, but don’t worry about it. Set the pudding aside to cool.
2. When a skin has formed, you are ready to begin your earth moving. Use a spatula to work around the outside edges of the pudding and free it from the walls of the pan.
3. Let your child use the spatulas to slowly push the pudding inwards from opposite sides. As the pudding’s skin deforms, talk about the creation of mountains and valleys as the continental plates push against one another.

   You can use the edge of the spatula or a knife to slide through the pudding to create a few continental plates of your own. See what happens when you work the plates toward one another with the spatulas.

4. Finally, use those two spoons. Eat your planet!

Tried it? What did you think of this kids’ learning activity? What other science activities have you done at home with the family?

Activity from Kaplan’s Making the Grade: Grades 3-4, Creating a Successful Learning Environment at Home.