From: Jeanne (for Teacher2Teacher Service)
Date: Oct 16, 2000 at 11:55:10
Subject: Re: Pumpkin Math

Hello Angie,

Sounds like you have a nice opportunity for some measurement, data
collection activities and graphing activities.

Students could measure the circumference and weight of each pumpkin.  Take
the class data and compute the mean, median and mode, make a scatterplot
(circumference vs weight) of the data.

The largest pumpkin at the 27th Annual Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off –– the
Heavyweight Championship in the Pumpkin Capital of the World –– Half Moon
Bay, California (1999) weighed 991 pounds.  There's a picture of it on the
Half Moon Bay site, which is:

http://www.miramarevents.com/weighoff/facts.html .  Could your class' data
help the kids predict its circumference? Or perhaps they could predict the
mass of an especially large pumpkin that your school might acquire/borrow
from a nice farmer?  This way they can see how close they got.

Students could predict the number of seeds inside his/her pumpkin, then do a
count.  Perhaps make a histogram of this data.

I found a webpage on a Pumpkin Festival in New Hampshire.  They are going
for a world record.  They have a record of the numbers of jack o'lanterns
brought to the event over the years.  Perhaps you could do a graphing
activity and a have a discussion of trends?  Pumpkin Festival 2000:
http://www.centerstagenh.com/record.html

Hope this helps.

 -Jeanne, for the Teacher2Teacher service

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