Pumpkinology A Brief History

Runaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis Publisher Orchard Books an imprint of Scholastic Inc ISBN: Amazon ISBN:

Jack-O-Lantern ? Why not Jill-O-Lantern ? So how do we tell the difference between the male and the female?

Take a look and decide if the pumpkins are male or female

Is there a relationship between the circumference and the mass of the pumpkin? What should we do to find out? Data Collection

Let’s Do It ! Place a dot on the Graph when you have made your measurements

Is there a relationship between the mass of the pumpkin and the number of seeds inside? What should we do to find out? Data Collection Should we count all the seeds or only the fertilized seeds? How do we know if they are fertilized ?

BUT FIRST... Fruits have “carpels” or little rooms inside the fruit where the seeds develop. Look at apple carpels How many carpels in the pumpkin ?

Pumpkin Life Cycle Will the seeds grow ? Are they monocot or dicot seeds ? Do the seeds need to be dried first ? Should we take off the seed covering ? What method gets them growing fastest ?

THE END Can we prevent or at least slow down the “rot process”? What methods could we use? Just watch it rot ! What methods could we use? ? Class Motto: To get a good idea we need to get a lot of ideas.

Other Stuff Sink or Float Activities Once we were tossing things into a bucket of water to see if they floated or sunk. Bowling balls are all the same dimensions but some float and some sink. Pumpkins probably are similar to bowling balls. Try it. Try other fruits and vegetables. More Data Collection Find the total mass of the seeds as a percentage of the total mass of the pumpkin. Roasting the seeds is fun and good for you. Food Anything from “Runaway Pumpkin”- pie, bread, soup, etc. If all the seeds grew into a pumpkin plant and produced just one pumpkin like yours, how many plants would you have in two years?

Pumpkinology Thank you for your participation