Have students construct an artistic flowchart that exhibits landform cycles pertaining to oceanic, volcanic, glacial or river formations. Assign them a formation to construct and give them the art supplies they need to create a colorful and creative display. Students should be paired into teams or small groups. Give students an adequate amount of time to work on their displays, as they will have to first map out the order of the formation before they construct the visual diagram. Have students present their final artwork to the class and prepare a small educational lesson about the landform they were assigned.
Bring in stacks of magazines and place students into small groups. Give each group a bunch of magazines and instruct the students to flip through them to find pictures that resemble landforms. Allow students total creative freedom to see what they come up with. Pass out scissors, glue and poster board, and ask that students cut out the magazine images and assemble them into a collage using the poster board. To avoid too many similar collages, assign each group a specific landform to focus on, such as mountains or oceans.
Papier-mache is a messy, but fun, art project for students, and can be an effective way to students to really learn about landforms. This project requires more art supplies and time, as it may have to be completed over the course of days to allow for drying, hardening and painting of the papier-mache. Teachers must supply their classroom with the materials and molds, and divide students into large groups. Each group will be responsible for building a landform out of papier-mache, using the molds. After the papier-mache dries it can be glossed and painted to resemble the topography of the landform.
Many students are dazzled with the idea of building a volcano and watching it erupt. For this class project you will need a papier-mache volcano (or plaster), along with a small container, vinegar, liquid dish soap, baking soda and red and yellow food coloring. This activity is best suited for outside since the volcano can become messy and hard to clean up inside of a classroom. The ingredients should be combined, saving the vinegar for the last part. Add a drop of vinegar to the inside of your volcano (where the other ingredients are stored) and watch as the volcano erupts!