All of these supplies should be easily found around the house or purchased at a craft supply store.

Hold a ruler to the point that is about the center Hold the pencil in place above the ruler. Have a friend rotate the ball horizontally while you hold the pencil and watch the line form around the center. When the ball is back to the starting point, rotate the ball vertically. When you’re finished, you should have two pencil lines that dive the ball into quarters.

Position the foam ball so that one of the lines is facing straight up. Place the knife on the line and gently saw back and forth until you reach the center of the ball (the horizontal line). Reposition the ball so that the horizontal line is now facing up. Gently saw again until you reach the center of the ball. Wiggle the quarter until it comes free from the ball.

You can throw away the quarter that was cut out of the ball. Let the globe dry before painting the inside.

Once each line has been sketched, color them in with the various paints. Use yellow for the inner core, orange for the outer core, 2 shades of red for the mantle (1 for the upper and 1 for the lower), and brown for the crust.

Alternatively, you can write the labels directly on the ball.

When cool, knead the dough for 1-2 minutes. Parental supervision is recommended for this step. The coarse salt crystals will still be visible within the dough. This is normal.

Two golf ball sizes: 1 green, 1 red. Medium sizes: 1 orange, 1 brown. Large sizes: 2 shades of yellow, 1 blue.

You want the entire model to remain relatively spherical to resemble the shape of the Earth.

Roll out the dough and then wrap it around the ball, joining all of the sides together into 1 layer. Repeat for the second layer of yellow.

Finally, shape pieces of the green dough into approximations of the continents. Press them into the ocean approximately where they belong on the globe.

The 2 halves should show you a clear cross-section of the layers of the Earth.

Because you have 2 halves of the Earth, you can use 1 half with the layers labeled and exposed and present the other half with the ocean and continents face up, as a “view from the top”.

The crust is interesting because there are two types of crust: oceanic and continental. This is easily seen by looking at the model and seeing that the crust contains both the oceans and the continents. The mantle takes up about 84% of the Earth’s volume. The mantle is mostly solid, but acts like a viscous fluid. Movement within the mantle is responsible for the motion of tectonic plates. [13] X Research source The outer core is liquid and is estimated to be 80% iron. It spins faster than the rotation of the planet and is thought to contribute to the magnetic field of the Earth. The inner core is also composed mostly of iron and nickel with potential heavier elements such as gold, platinum, and silver present. Because of the massively high pressure the inner core experiences, it is solid.

The finished size of your paper model depends on how large you want to make it. Using a compass to draw the circles is an easy way to make perfect circles and easily vary the sizes. If you don’t have a compass, you can find 5 circular shapes to use as stencils for each layer of the Earth. Use textured paper to make your model stand out.

Inner core: diameter of 2 inches Outer core: diameter of 4 inches Lower mantle: diameter of 7 inches Upper mantle: diameter of 8 inches Crust: diameter of 8. 5 inches These dimensions are just suggestions, you can make the circles any size you would like as long as you make the mantle the largest layer and the crust the thinnest layer. [14] X Research source

Place the brown crust down first, then place the red mantle on top, the orange mantle next, then the blue outer core, followed by the white inner core. Use the glue stick to glue each layer down.

Try to relate your interesting facts to discussions that you may have had during class.