What a (topographic) Relief!

As we near the end of the Rock Arc, I realized we have the time to do one more project if we all help out. One of the ideas that came up was to make a relief map from a topographic map of San Francisco. To do this, we had to find a suitable map, pick the right materials, and take turns with each job.Yesterday, Ally and Lucie spent a good amount of time making a scale model of our large map. They cut out the layers of small map to estimate how much cardboard/wood/foam board we would need. If we had enough, foam board would be the best because it's light and easy to cut.The end result was really cool and got everyone excited. Even the layers of paper looked great. Imagine what a 48"x48" version would look like!After we had the pieces, the kids figured out we would only need four 48"x48" sheets of material, so we could use the foam board that I have. Lucie and Ally finished the model, so they were the first to start tracing the layers for our larger version. Once they finished, Evan and Amelia traced the next layer (101-200 ft in elevation).The next day, Ally started cutting out her outline of the city while Amelia and Evan finished drawing. This took a little practice because they are using my hot knives to cut out the map. If you're unfamiliar, it's basically an X-acto blade on a soldering iron. The knife cuts the paper and melts the foam which gives you great control and clean cuts. By the end of the say, all the layers have been traced. Hopefully tomorrow we can assemble!Meanwhile, the rest of the band was working hard adding their research topics to the group timeline. Each student was assigned a topic (sea levels, animals, human ancestors, plants, etc) and had to add 8-10 of these to our timeline. Hopefully we'll finish this timeline by the end of the arc!