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Discover Your World With NOAA

Make Your Own 

Volcano!

What You Will Need

❒ Cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels

❒ Sheets of newspaper

❒ Clear plastic tape or masking tape

❒ Corrugated cardboard, about 12 inches square

❒ Aluminum foil or homemade modeling dough 

(see recipe below)

❒ Modeling dough (store-bought or homemade)

❒ Baking soda (enough to fi ll the cardboard tube 

at least half full)

❒ Vinegar, about eight ounces

❒ Sharp knife to cut the cardboard tube

❒ Optional: spray paint; spray glue; sand; food 

coloring

Warnings 

1. Be careful with the knife! Cut on a fl at cutting 

board, and keep your fi ngers away from the 

blade!

2. Wear protective gloves and eye shields when 

handling chemicals.

2,000 feet below the ocean surface, we saw 

billowing clouds of smoke rising from the volcano’s crater. Huge clouds of yellow-tinged smoke 

and yellow balls of molten sulfur surrounded 

our underwater robot...As black chunks of 

volcanic ash began spewing out of the pit, we 

decided to retreat from the site because the 

acidic water, sulfur, and fl ying rocks were endangering our robot.

— from the Ocean Explorer 2004 Ring of Fire 

Expedition; the fi rst time any human actually saw 

an underwater volcano erupt!

What You Will Do

Make a model of a volcano, 

complete with eruption!

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

SCIENCE | Service | Stewardship

How to Do It

1. Cut the cardboard tube to a length of about 

eight inches. Plug the bottom of the tube 

with a piece of modeling dough.

2. Tape the cardboard tube to the piece of corrugated cardboard with plastic tape or masking 

tape.

3. Crumple sheets of newspaper into balls, and 

tape these onto the corrugated cardboard 

around the cardboard tube. Make several different size balls so the surface tapers upward 

from the edge of the cardboard to the top of 

the cardboard tube, giving your volcano its 

shape.

EXPLORE THE EARTH ACTIVITY: MAKE YOUR OWN VOLCANO

corrugated cardboard

cardboard tube

modeling dough

baking soda

newspaper wads

modeling dough plug

spray paint

Cutaway view of the volcano model

4. Cover the balls of newspaper with a sheet of 

aluminum foil or a rolled out sheet of homemade modeling dough. Leave a hole in the 

covering for the end of the cardboard tube. 

Fold the edges of the foil under the corrugated cardboard sheet.

5. Optional: Decorate your model. Spray with 

green and brown spray paint. You may also 

want to spray on glue and dribble sand onto 

the glue before it dries.

6. Fill the cardboard tube at least half full of 

baking soda. If desired, mix several drops of 

red food coloring into the vinegar to give a 

molten lava appearance.

7. Take your model outside before erupting! Pour 

the vinegar into the tube, and stand 

back!

[Note: The volcano model made in this 

activity has the shape of a strato volcano. If you want to make a model of a 

shield volcano, cut the cardboard tube 

to a length of about three inches instead 

of eight inches (Step 1). Then follow the 

remaining instructions.]

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Courtesy Mel Goodwin

 Recipe for 

Homemade Modeling Dough

1 cup fl our

1/2 cup salt

1 cup water

1 tablespoon cooking oil

2 teaspoon cream of tartar

(optional) food coloring

Mix all ingredients together and heat slowly, 

stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick 

and doughy. Let the mixture cool until it 

can be handled. Knead the dough ball a few 

times, then wrap in foil to store.
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42

What’s Happening

Volcanoes erupt when rocks melt 

below Earth’s surface. Liquid 

rock in the Earth’s crust is called 

magma, and tends to rise toward the 

surface. Magma collects beneath 

the surface in magma chambers, 

which often contain various gases 

as well as magma. When the magma 

and gases break through the 

Earth’s crust, an eruption happens. 

If pressure builds up inside the 

magma chamber, the eruption may 

be very violent. Very hot lava fl ows 

easily over the Earth’s surface, 

and produces fl attened volcanoes 

called shield volcanoes. If the lava 

is cooler, it is sticky and fl ows more 

slowly, producing the familiar 

cone-shaped volcanoes called 

strato volcanoes. If the eruption is 

extremely explosive and violent, 

the top of the volcano may be blown 

completely away so that only the inside of the magma chamber remains. The 

collapsed depression is called a caldera.

See the diagram above for a summary of the di erent types of submarine 

volcanoes.

This activity is adapted from “The Volcano Factory,“ a lesson from the Ocean Explorer 2004 Ring 

of Fire Expedition (oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/04fi re/background/edu/media/

RoF.volcanism.pdf); by Mel Goodwin, PhD, Marine Biologist and Science Writer, Mt. Pleasant, 

SC.

Want to Do More?

1. You can see pictures from the Ocean Explorer Ring of Fire expeditions, 

and fi nd out more about their discoveries at: 

oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/03fi re/welcome.html, 

oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/04fi re/welcome.html, 

oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/06fi re/welcome.html, and

oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/14fi re/welcome.html.

2. Some volcanoes in the United States are also part of the Ring of Fire! 

Find out more at vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/.

Most submarine volcanoes occur where tectonic plates are either moving apart or colliding. This image shows the many types of plate boundaries: 

convergent, transform, divergent, and continental rift zone. The Explorer Ridge is a divergent plate boundary at an ocean spreading ridge in the 

eastern Pacifi c, where new oceanic crust is formed. The Mariana Island Arc, on the other end of the conveyor belt in the western Pacifi c, was 

formed by the melting of the subducting Pacifi c Plate. (Image courtesy of USGS Web site. Cross section by Jose F. Vigil from This Dynamic Planet.)

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