Introduction

Our awesome Earth is truly amazing! Remember, we only have one Earth so we all must strive to reuse, reduce, and recycle.  

Objectives

To learn about the layers/horizons of soil by creating an edible model

Materials

• Small clear plastic cup
• Sandwich cookies
• Butterscotch chips
• Small container of milk chocolate prepared pudding (or you can mix chocolate and vanilla)
• Crumbled cookies (two or three in a small zip-lock type bag)
• Sprinkles
• Gummy worms
• Spoon for stirring and eating

Procedure

Place cookies in the bottom of the cup to represent the solid rock. Add chips as parent material (weathered, crumbling bedrock). Next spoon your pudding over the cookies and chips. This represents the subsoil layer. The topsoil comes next. Pound the chocolate cookies in the plastic bag until the cookies are finely ground, and look like rich, dark dirt. Pour it over the pudding. Finally, place the sprinkles gummy worms on the top. This represents litter, or organic matter. What a yummy way to learn about soil!

Conclusion

Bedrock is solid rock. Parent material is formed from the bedrock after a long weathering process. Subsoil is lighter in color because it has less organic matter. It is made up of a variable mixture of small particles like sand, silt, and clay. Topsoil is the top layer of soil. Nutrients, bacteria, fungi, and small animals are abundant. Plants thrive in it because of the nutrients it offers. Litter, comprised of animal and plant materials, bark, leaves, etc., decompose into nutrients that enrich the soil.