Help! Can you think of a creative & different Volcano project?

[3littlekeets]

We need to build an erupting volcano, and my son doesn't want to do the standard paper mache version. Any more interesting and creative versions?

[sclisa]

We've started with a bottle (2 liter, 3 liter...or if you want something smaller, use a single serving bottle), and put said bottle on an appropriately-sized sheet of plywood. We then wrap chicken wire around the top of the bottle, drape it in a volcano-like formation down to the plywood & staple to secure. Then, we use several coats of drywall mud over the chicken wire. Once that has dried, we paint & then cover with a polyurethane or other type of sealant. That way, when we "erupt" the volcano, the drywall mud doesn't 'melt.'

I don't know if that's any more creative, but we've had more fun with this method than with papier-mache.

Lisa

[Pster]

I don't know how creative it is but..... we used a water bottle or the "inside volcano" part. We made salt dough for the outside of the volcano and blended that in for the "land" around the volcano. (We made this on an opened pizza box lined with foil.) I think if it would have dried we would have painted it the appropriate colors but the girls were too eager to have it explode! lol We did walk around the yard and nearby brush and they picked up twigs and mini-branches for trees. Also collected wood chips and small rocks for our landscape. The girls had a great time. It ooozed "pink" lava which is not what I envisioned but - they had fun with it. And....it didn't take a whole long time to put it together.

[3littlekeets]

Thank you! I'll ask if either of these suit him :o. He wants to do this so badly....

[mcconnellboys]

We also regularly use a water or soft drink bottle for the internal works, then cover with Crayola clay. Wait until it dries and then spray paint in mountainous colors. After this dries, we fill our bottle with bs, using a funnel. We actually cap it with the lid until we're ready to add vinegar and explode, then cap it again after rinsing and allowing to dry to keep junk out of it. These will keep for a long time.

We add both dishwashing detergent, as well as red food coloring to our mix in order to get more interesting "lava".

I've also made a shield volcano by marking a half round of floral styrofoam to the size of a juice glass, then cutting out that center and inserting the glass. Fill with the ingredients for lava and see a more even flow, such as you would with shield volcanoes....

Regena

[Chris in VA]

Just wanted to pass along this link--it's a really fun, virtual volcano simulation showing different types of volcanos, and how the mix of gases and other things cause different sorts of eruptions.
Virtual volcanos (http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/pompeii/interactive/interactive.html)

Also, do you know you can use hydrogen peroxide to get a steam volcano? We tried this along with the baking soda kind. Oh, and we just used clay around a skinny vase.

Here's a link to an experiment using peroxide with yeast, and comparing the reaction to one made with baking soda and vinegar, and baking soda and lemon juice. What a nice project, to have all three kinds to see!
Volcano link (http://www.crystal-clear-science-fair-projects.com/volcano-science-project.html)

[Carol in Cal.]

We used red food coloring along with the dishwashing detergent, vinegar, and baking soda to get lava that really looked like lava.

We also built up the volcano from colored playdough. So we used deep and medium green dough for the lower part of the mountain and for the plains around it, and dark earth-colored playdough for the dirt near the top of the mountain (above the tree line.) (I used used coffee grounds to color the earth-colored playdough. It was very convincing in color and texture.) And I made deep black playdough for the solidified lava.

When we erupted the volcano, I had the kids ready to put black playdough wherever the lava flowed. We talked about how this is one of the ways that mountains grow. The finished volcano was very impressive--quite dramatic with the black swaths through the brown and green original surface, and with the changing direction of the lava flows depending on where lava had already solidified before the second eruption. We had some fairly sobering talks about what it would have been like to be a person living nearby. Then we read a Newbury honor book called "Volcano" that has great photos of the Mount St. Helens before, during, and after the eruption; and of nature regaining a foothold on that mountain years later. We also read "The Twenty One Balloons" to relieve the stress, and talked about modern volcano prediction techniques. It was great!