Download Pizza Slice Earth

Lab Activity: Pizza Slice Earth
Objective: Develop understanding of the structure of the Earth’s interior by constructing
a scale model of a “slice” of the interior of the Earth.
Materials:
1. Two 11” by 17” sheets of paper
2. Meter Stick
3. Pencil
4. 70 cm long string with loop at one end
5. Transparent tape
6. Colored pencils, crayons
Procedure:
1. Tape two 11” by 17” sheets of paper together along the short side.
2. Draw a dotted line down the center of your paper that is 63.7 cm long.
3. At one end of your center line place a dot and label “center point”.
4. At the other end of your center line, pencil in two dashed “width points” at
_______cm from the center line.
5. Using a meter stick draw in the two sides of your pizza slice by connecting your
center point to the width point above and below the center line.
6. Using the 70 cm long string, draw an arc between the two width lines to complete
your pizza slice.
7. Calculate the scale values for each boundary using the info provided in table 1
and the scale 1cm = 100 km
8. Label the boundaries and layers of inner Earth as follows:
Inner core = white
Outer core = yellow
Lower mantle = orange
Upper mantle = red
Lithosphere = brown
9. On your slice label the material of which each layer consists
Table 1. Measurements for Earth’s Interior Structure
Actual Value
Scale Value
1 cm = 100 km
Radius of Earth
6371 km
Depth* to base of the crust
(average)
Depth* to base of the
lithosphere (average)
Depth* to base of the upper
mantle
Depth* to core-mantle
boundary
Depth* to outer core –inner
core boundary
35 km
100 km
670 km
2885 km
5155 km
Questions:
1.We used an average of 35 km to represent the crust. What are the two types of crust and
the range of their thicknesses?
2. What is the Mohorovicic Discontinuity? Label this on your pizza slice. What do you
notice about the composition of the layers above and below this boundary?
3. Is our knowledge of the inner Earth an observation or an inference? Explain.
4. What evidence leads to this inference?
5. Draw and label a diagram that shows the relationship between the crust, the
lithosphere, the asthenosphere, and the upper mantle.