That's Just Rotten

I have been waiting over a decade to do this project. Literally.

When I was in college, one of my courses sent us to a teacher training being held in the town I grew up in. When I was there, I took a workshop on incorporating science in the elementary school classroom. Most of the science I taught was cooking based, so I never had a chance to teach this lesson. I wish I could remember who taught the session, but I don't remember at all, nor do I know where my handouts are, so I suppose it's not much more than the broad idea that I used.

So here it is--it is all about rotting stuff. You take your left over jack-o-lantern from Halloween and bury it, along with other items that no one needs again. We got a large pot and potting soil from a garden center, since we are living in a rental house and didn't want to dig up the yard, plus it will make easier to find what is left of our items later.

In preparation for our lesson we read From Seed to Pumpkin by Pfeffer and The Magic School Bus Meets the Rot Squad by Cole. We also completed "It's Like Magic" (about composting) in Read and Understand Science Grades 1-2 by Evan-Moor Publishing.

These are the things we buried with our pumpkin:

a paperclip, a note from Halloween/Trick or Treating, an orange spider ring, and a scrap piece of ribbon from Kate's costume.

Kate made guesses as to what would happen to our items.

She decided the pumpkin would become dirt. I thought she'd really grasped it, but then she decided each of the other items would be there in their present state in the spring, but that they would have each been turned black by the dirt.

On a side note, our pumpkins were already starting to decompose sitting out back waiting for us to get over the stomach flu. Kate was out back playing when she saw that the lids had fallen in. Her explanation was priceless, "My pumpkin got too big for it's lid!" Very linear, but very false. Maybe next year we'll measure our pumpkins to see that they don't grow once they are off the vine.


Here is our nearly buried pumpkin.

We'll dig it up in the spring and see what's left! Then she can fill out the rest of our worksheet. We'll talk about the value of recycling then too, as some of our things will not have broken down in that time.

Happy decomposing!