Use a variety of foods to build an unusual model of landforms.
Landforms are the various features of the earth's surface, such as valleys, plateaus, mountains, plains, hills and glaciers. For an interesting twist on building a model of landforms, craft your project out of tasty foods. Whether you aim to make an extensive model that includes many landforms or a simple model of a single landform, you can use some of your favorite foods to make the project more memorable.
Land and Water
For a model of landforms based on both land and water features, you can incorporate forms such as peninsulas, islands, coves, capes, straits, isthmuses and bays. Use foods that combine sauces or syrups with solid elements. For example, you can bake a simple sheet cake and cut it down to size to reproduce a shoreline with various landform features. Set the cake in a deep dish with high sides and pour syrup or whipped cream in the negative spaces, to reproduce water features.
Mountainous Landforms
To reproduce the landforms of a mountainous landscape, look for foodstuffs that lend themselves to molding and shaping. For a healthy landform model, you can use dip, such as peanut butter or hummus, to create the basic shape of the mountain range, complete with peaks and valleys. To give the model the right color, finely chop broccoli florets and sprinkle them over parts of the mountains to simulate tree cover. To create rivers in the valleys between mountains, tear off thin strips of celery and wind them into place.
Sweet Landforms
For a sweet and expansive interpretation of landforms, use various types of candy to represent various forms. For example, you can use string-shaped candies, such as licorice, to stand in for rivers, streams or waterfalls. To produce hills, use gumdrops or cluster-shaped cookies. For beaches or deserts, grind down "sandies" cookies or other sand-colored butter cookies. Wherever you wish to represent lakes or oceans, set out cookies covered with blue frosting.
Changing Landforms
For a more complex model of landforms, you can demonstrate changes due to erosion, plate tectonics, weathering or sedimentary deposits. Begin by setting out multiple trays, each to represent a single place over the course of multiple geological changes. In the first tray, use your favorite and most pliable foods to create realistic landforms. In the second tray, make a single change to the first model, based on a single type of geological shift. Continue the same process for the last two trays so that the sequence shows a continuous series of changes.
Tags: model landforms, water features, your favorite