Volcanos

6th Grade. It brings many exciting and new things. No more recess. Multiple items to chose from for lunch. Moving from class to class.  1st year of Middle School. And of course, the ever dreaded Volcano project. 

Of course Jacob (and his parents) knew about the Volcano project for months, but Jacob didn’t begin working the actual Volcano until the week before it was due.

There are many ideas – use paper mache, putty, plaster, spray foam, etc. Jacob knew he wanted to use diet coke and mento’s for the eruption so that part was done.  And we decided to use plaster of paris, no wait, then we changed our minds and went with wall putty – lighter and dries faster. No wait, then we changed our minds again and went with spray insulation foam.

Well, we started with a plastic water bottle.

It looked funny and definitely didn’t look like a Volcano. Oops. Start Over.

Try #2:

Let’s use a small soccer cone, with the bottle inside, and then put wadded up newspapers to form the volcano.  The cone will help the shape be more tapered, and use putty.  1/8 of the way through, the thing weighed about 27 pounds and wasn’t looking any better. And the newspaper was turning to mush with the wetness of the putty.Plus the thickness of the putty would take weeks to dry. We didn’t have weeks anymore. 

Oops. Start Over.

Try #3:

Sticking with the cone/bottle start, we used spray foam this time. Super light, dries fast, and somewhat shapeable.  We used the whole bottle, and it looked fairly good. 

Then, after it sat overnight, and dried completely, the shape shifted as the foam settled downwards. Get out a knife and shape it somewhat.  We were out of time, so this was going to be it.

Jacob painted it, glued some greenery, and it actually turned out pretty good considering everything we did to get to this point.

He took it to school, excited to see it erupt.  When it was his turn, he put in the diet coke, dropped the Mento’s in and ran away……and waited…….and waited….and nothing happened.  It didn’t erupt!  Jacob was sad.  Luckily, the grade wasn’t on the eruption part – that was just the fun part.  Although disappointed, he did get a good grade on his THIRD volcano he made for this first (and hopefully) last Volcano project.