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Science Educators Becky and Don show you how cupcakes can help you learn about fossils. That's right. Cupcakes. This is one of the tastiest Real Science! experiment they've ever done.
Materials
- 1 box white cake mix (including additional ingredients listed on the box)
- 4 small bowls
- 4 different colors of food coloring
- 4 spoons
- Muffin baking pan
- Cupcake liners
- Mini Oreos
- Frosting
- Sprinkles
Process
- Preheat the oven according to the directions on the cake mix box. Note: Have an adult help you with the oven for safety reasons.
- Mix the white cake mix batter according to the package directions. Divide the batter into four separate bowls. To each bowl, add a few drops of food coloring. Mix each batter with a spoon to create different colors.
- Place the cupcake liners into the muffin baking pan. Place one to two spoonfuls of one color cake mix into a single cupcake liner. Carefully, spoon a second color on top. Be careful not to mix the two colors together. The cake mix represents the different sedimentary rock layers.
- Next, break up a few of the mini Oreos and place them on top of the batter. The cookies represent fossils.
- Cover the Oreos with one to two spoonfuls another color of cake mix, once again being careful not to mix the colors together.
- Fill the rest of the cupcake liners with your own combination of “sedimentary rock” and “fossils.”
- Bake the cupcakes according to the instructions on the package. Don’t forget to ask an adult for help!
- Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled, decorate them with frosting and sprinkles to act as the top layer of the Earth’s crust.
- Cut a cupcake in half and make an observation. Are there distinct layers of sedimentary rock? Where do you find the fossils? Which layer of the cupcake would be considered the “oldest” layer?
Summary
Fossils are the remains or traces of plants and animals that lived a long time ago. Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks, which are formed through layers of sediment—like mud or sand—that are pressed into rock over time. Fossils get trapped between the layers; different types of fossils can be found in different layers of sedimentary rock. The further a scientist goes down in the sedimentary rock, the older the rock and the older the fossil! Some scientists, like a geologist, use a method of core sampling to remove multiple layers of rock at one time.
Fossils take thousands of years to form. Fossils can be categorized as body fossils—like a dinosaur bone—or trace fossils—like a footprint or the outline of a plant. Fossils generally can be found near sedimentary rocks, which are rocks formed in swamps, rivers, lakes, and oceans when clay, silt, mud, and sand harden over millions of years. Many fossils are found near bodies of water or spaces that water bodies used to occupy.
Think about each layer of the cake mix. Bigger layers of cake mix will represent longer periods of time, while smaller layers of cake mix will represent shorter periods of time. Is each layer a short or long amount of time?
Take it a step further
Add pretzels, chocolate chips, or nuts as different fossils. Include a combination of the “fossils” to the different “sedimentary layers.” Would you find different fossils in the same sedimentary rock layer?
