Today, we will give you a step-by-step account of “The Diorama Project”. This is a school project that Lydia did for her science class. She made an ocean life diorama using a large glass fish bowl, a lot of gelatin, food coloring, jello, cake icing, sand, shells, many different varieties of plastic animal figures, some, glass animals, a huge tube, and a whole lot of ice.

When she came to us with this project, we said sure. An ocean out of a bowl of jello, how hard can that be? Well, now we know. It was not hard but it was in-depth. We were, of course, on hand to help with the heavy lifting, literally, a glass bowl full of jello is very heavy. But she knew what she wanted so we just sat back and did as we were told. And we kept an eye out for safety issues, such as boiling water and glass.

This was a huge project that required lots of layers and several days. She had to pour one layer and wait for it to set, then come back and pour the next layer. It did take some organizing to be sure the layers were poured and almost set to allow the animal figures to “float” in the correct layer. Along with animals, the proper ocean bottom had to be made, the correct animals had to be added to the correct layer, a coral reef had to be hand made, and a beach surface layer had to be the last part set up.

It starts from the bottom and goes up to the surface.

Deepwater

ocean bottom shelf

bluewater

coral reef

plankton stream

warm water

surface beach

The first layer is Deepwater – where the megladone and other such black water creatures would be found.

Using clear, blue gelatin and blue food coloring, she made the deep dark blue. She first made the blue jello, added some blue food coloring, and made a dark blue. She poured the gelatin into the huge glass fishbowl and waited for it to cool and set. The glass bowl was put into a huge bucket of ice to help speed up the cooling and setting process. This does take some time and some parent support. The glass bowl was heavy to start with and the more gelatin and animals that were added, the heavier the bowl became, that is an important note.

Once the gelatin was set enough to hold the figure, the meg went into place.

Next is the ocean floor sand, using vanilla pudding. She tilted the bowl onto an empty box of jello. This gave the pudding the look of a shelf. That is how the ocean bottom was made.

Again, it goes into the ice to help speed up the setting.

You can see the 2 layers have mixed a bit but are set to make a nice ocean shelf look.

Next another layer of blue water but a bit lighter this time. Using the same gelatin and blue food coloring, she made the next layer of water.

She had to be very careful to add just a bit of warm jello at a time to keep the warm gelatin from melting and mixing with the previous layer. She continued to fill the bowl with blue gelatin to cover the meg and give it some headroom.

The bowl was kept in the ice bucket to keep from sloshing the gelatin and messing up the sides of the bowl. Being on the ice also helped speed up the setting process.

Once the meg layer was set, She added the animals for the next layer of lighter blue water. This blue water will be where the sharks can be found. You can see how cool it was starting to look.

Using clear gelatin and blue food coloring, She made blue water that was a bit lighter than the darkest layer. This lightening up of the blue shows how the water gets lighter as you move towards the surface.

Still, in the tub of ice, She added the blue gelatin, slowly and carefully till she got the bowl filled to the “water level” she wanted. You can watch as she covers the shark figures.

You can see how the ice, helped the gelatin cool faster. The sides of the bowl did tend to collect water that had to be carefully wiped off so as not to mess up the layers below.

At this point, she had to have help to move the glass bowl in and out of the ice bucket in order to add animals and gelatin layers.

Once this layer was set, you can see how neat it looked. You can see the animals suspended in the gelatin but also you can see the bubble layer on top. This just gave it a more realistic look. You can also see the ocean bottom layer.

Next, she made a coral reef using red and white cake icing.

After putting the bowl back into the ice, she started adding more gelatin. Making a lighter blue for this water, she slowly filled the bowl to keep from washing the “coral reef” away.

When this layer was almost set but not quite, she made a plankton layer above the coral reef. Using cake decoration she sprinkled about, she gave it the look of a plankton stream. Then she let it set up in the ice till it was good and firm.

Next, she added a sea turtle.

She then took more gelatin, added some blue and green food coloring to make the next higher level.

Again, the bowl was left in ice to help it cool and set faster.

You can see, once the bowl was taken out of the ice bucket, the layers are visible. You can also see the animals in the lower levels.

At this point, the bowl was put into the church fridge to chill overnight, our house fridge was not large enough to hold it. The church nearby was good enough to let us use their fridge. We also ran out of ice by this time.

By morning the whole bowl of gelatin was well set and ready for more animals.

She next put the manatee and dolphin in place. She also added some small, glass, fish to this layer.

You can see the dolphin tail sticking out of the water and the beluga whale in the layer below. It was looking really good by this time.

With the placement of the manatee and dolphin, it was time for the beach surface layer.

Using some real sand, she made a beach on the surface. She made sure to keep the dolphin out to sea and let the manatee come up close to shore. Onshore, she added another sea turtle basking in the sun as well as a crab, some starfish, and some seashells.

Lydia’s diorama was complete.

Now came the multiple attempts to get the lighting just right for the best pictures of the finished product. Although it already looked really great.

In the next series of pics, you will see the layers and the animals that are in those layers.

Coral Reef

Ocean Bottom Shelf

Deep Water

This started as a school project but it turned out to be a work of art. She had a fun time making this diorama and it turned out to look so cool. We are very proud of her and she got a great grade for the project. Her teacher was impressed also.

It is important at this time to note, even though the pudding, gelatin, and cake decorations would normally be edible, by the time this project was done, She DID NOT EAT IT. Keeping the bowl in the fridge helped keep things in the right place but after all the handling, plastic animals, and real sand, it would have been unsafe to try to eat any part of it.

We hope you have enjoyed this diorama project. All of the adults tried to take the best pics to show it off but really the pics did not do it justice. It was awesome!

If you have a lot of gelatin, we recommend you try this out with your kids. We would advise starting with a smaller scale on your first try. There was a good bit of mess made and a whole lot of resource used but the fun outweighed all of that for sure.

Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.