This is a partially developed activity description. It is included in the collection because it contains ideas useful for teaching even though it is incomplete.

Initial Publication Date: March 12, 2008

What's Cooking in Geology? Food Analogies and Demonstrations to Connect Geology with Everyday Experiences

By Larry Lemke, Annia Fayon, Cristina de Campos, and Rebecca Boger

Topic: Numerous Connection Areas:

Structural Geology
Magma Dynamics
Viscosity and Volcanic Eruption Style
Oil Spills
Glacial Motion
Plate Tectonics

Course Type:intro upper level

Description

Instructors demonstrate or draw analogies between the behavior of common food items utilized in cooking to illustrate the behavior of Earth materials.

Examples:

Structural Geology

Uncooked linguini noodles are used to demonstrate elastic and brittle deformation.
Corn starch and water are mixed and manipulated in students hands to illustrate strain hardening.
Diapirism can be illustrated using a jar filled with molasses and cooking oil. The jar is inverted slowly and the density contrast leads to fluid redistribution.

Magma Dynamics

Tomato soup is heated to illustrate convection.
Double diffusive convection (layering) is demonstrated using hot coffee with cream stirred slowly for a short time in a transparent glass.
Fondue is prepared with a blend of cheeses to illustrate melting and temperature dependent mixing.

Viscosity and Volcanic Eruption Style

Boiling water and heating tomato sauce (in a covered pot) are contrasted to illustrate differences in viscosity.
Baking soda and vinegar are mixed in a 35mm film canister. The canister is capped immediately and held tight. When released, a pyroclastic eruption is simulated. The same demonstration in an uncapped canister can be used to simulate an effusive eruption.
The champagne bottle effect is used to illustrate the increase in size of gas bubbles as they rise through the liquid column, analogous to expansion of bubbles due to pressure release in a volcanic conduit.

Oil Spills

Cooking oil is poured on top of a bowl of water. Students attempt to remove the oil using a straw or eye dropper (a difficult task). A drop of surfactant (dish soap) is added to disperse the oil.

Plate Tectonics

Snack Tectonicsl
Pizza slices can be used to illustrate divergent and transform plate boundaries. Pizza slices can also be used to illustrate thrust faulting (nappes).
Brie cheese with solid wax and soft interior can be used as an analogy for the lithosphere and asthenosphere.

Glacial Motion

The spreading of pancake batter or a mound of mashed potatoes under its own weight is an analogue for the expansion of continental ice sheets that can be used to explain radial map patterns of glacial striations.