Halloween Science

The time is now upon us...Halloween.  Today we kicked off the excitement with a pumpkin lab and connected it to math later in the day.  Students were responsible for finding their pumpkin's equitorial circumference, polar circumference, wall thickness, mass, seed count, mass of seeds, volume of pumpkin and density of pumpkin (calculating it using the formula).

In math, groups exchanged their data so a class table was produced.  Using students as an example, central tendency was calculated for each characteristic.  Many patterns emerged, including connecting the density of the pumpkin (around 0.60 g/ml) to how much was below the water (60%) when the pumpkin floated, as well as the number of verticle lines on each pumpkin (21 or 22 on every pumpkin).  Other items were not so linked, such as the number of seeds in each pumpkin.

In reading, an informational text article about the Irish Potato Famine was started.  This was linked to this week's celebration of Halloween regarding the "trick-or-treating" that now takes place.  Ask you child to fill you in on more details.