Evie, Olivia and Alba in 3rd class started measuring one of the pumpkins in the community garden in September. They have measured the same pumpkin for five weeks. The first week they measured, the pumpkin was 50cm at its fattest part. Last week when they measured, the pumpkin was 60cm. But it wasn’t all a steady increase! Evie said the project was quite interesting. She learned how to take measurements precisely. Alba said it was quite interesting to go out every week to measure, it might have gotten boring if they measured every day. Olivia thought it was fun because it was cool how it shrunk and then grew again. So on week 4, they discovered that the pumpkin had shrunk from 56 cm to 55cm. Upon researching why this might have happened, they discovered that the dry autumn was to blame. By watering the pumpkin every day from 8th October to 15th October, the next measurement showed 60cm. Pumpkins are 90% water so need a lot of water to drink. So if you ever grow pumpkins, the more water you give them, the bigger they will become. Thank you to Senior Infants for growing the pumpkins in Junior Infants and letting 3rd class do some scientific research on them.
The girls got to decorate their pumpkin for Halloween.
