Plate Tectonic Parfait

My cousin had a science project due next week. It involves creating a model of plate tectonics where the plates all have to interact with each other (not just a model of each type of fault). Unfortunately, she also has the annoying habit of keeping all of her models for several years in the bottom of her closet. It's a bit of a mess to clean up. So I pointed her towards parfait.

That's right, that cookie and jello layered dessert that is better than cake (according to Donkey). It's also easy to clean up after it's been graded. (Just remember to take a picture! You may need a record if your teacher's gradebook splorts the week before end of term.)

How to make Plate Tectonic Parfait
*9x13 glass pan with lid (for safe transport to school)
*Red jello (we used 2 cups for a very thin magma layer. If you want more definition in your mantle, you can use more, or layer it with whipped topping or orange for a fiery look).
*Sugar cookies (we used snickerdoodles because I like the taste better).
*Cinnamon sugar (for the land)
*Blue colored sugar (for the oceans)
*Two colors of frosting (one for marking the edges of the plates, the other for marking the direction of travel)
*Toothpicks and labels
*5 red gummi candies - the smaller, the better.

1) Mix up the red jello for your mantle/magma layer. There is room for up to 6 cups of jello plus the cookies, but we used only 2 cups of strawberry jello for ours. This is a parfait!
2) Plan how you want your world to look. Plan subduction, divergent, and convergent boundaries and where you need your hotspots.
3) Make cookies. We just used a regular snickerdoodle recipe. Wait until the cookies are cool but not set hard and put them on top of the red jello. Cover the whole surface (you may have to break cookies in half to fill in the gaps.
4) To make the hot spots:
Volcanoes: Take a red gummi and wrap it in cookie dough. Then bake those cookies inside a small mold (to keep them from spreading). The gummi will melt and look like lava. While the cookie is still warm, mold it to the shape you desire.
Make an extra large cookie and bake it for the plate. Punch out holes for any hotspots and press the cookie down to squeeze jello to the surface. Put a volcano on the top.
5) Make the land cookies. Roll these in cinnamon sugar (you want it heavy on the cinnamon) or green colored sugar before you bake. Put the land cookies over the first layer of cookies. To make folded mountains, squish the cookie against the side of the pan while it is still hot and let it cool all squished up.
6) Decorate. We started with the frosting, but it's actually easier to start with the colored sugars. Fill in the ocean with blue colored sugar. Draw your plate boundaries with frosting. Then draw arrows to show the direction of movement.
7) Label. Use labels and toothpicks to create little flags.

We learned some things along the way.
* Let your jello set up most of the way before you put the cookies in the oven. We had to speed set our jello to the gooey stage by putting it in the freezer.
* Cookies do not behave the way you want them to. It never fails. So plan on making more cookies than you need and eating the rest.

You could try adding fruits, nuts, or whipped topping layers. All I know is that it's one sweet science model.