Do you remember Jack? As part of our pumpkin unit, we adopted the ugliest, bumpiest, wartiest pumpkin ever seen but the children loved it. They named it Jack and spent time running their hands over the warts, studying it with magnifying glasses and generally observing it. But then came the day, after Jack had been on the science table for about three weeks, that someone noticed a soft spot. And then another one. And then a bit of...ugh!..mold! There was black mold on the warts and some around the top as well as a speck growing on the soft spot. So Jack had to go. Before we threw him into the garbage can we remembered we had not tested the question we had asked on Halloween about whether or not pumpkins could float. So we got out a large tub, filled it with water and threw him in. You can watch that experiment in the video titled "Float or Sink".
After a day of lounging in the tub, Jack was put back on the science table for a few days and we were amazed to see the mold grow quickly. There was some black mold and some thick white/gray fuzzy kind. But why was he getting moldy? How did mold grow? We made some hypotheses (scientific guesses), we put him back under the knife and chopped Jack into pieces. Parts of him were put into two jars. We made sure that each jar had mold. One jar we poked holes into the lid and labeled Aerobic (with air) and the other we put a lit candle into and screwed the lid on real tight so the flame would use up all the air and we labeled it Anaerobic (without air). We predicted, remembering that we had earlier guessed mold needed air, water and 'food' to grow, which jar would grow the most mold. Then we left Jack to do his thing. And boy is he doing his thing! He grew a baby! We are thrilled! We will watch the two Jacks for the rest of the year and compare and contrast what is happening in each jar. Team Awesome is making plans to help the baby pumpkin plant grow and grow and grow. Hmmm.... sounds like another experiment.
After a day of lounging in the tub, Jack was put back on the science table for a few days and we were amazed to see the mold grow quickly. There was some black mold and some thick white/gray fuzzy kind. But why was he getting moldy? How did mold grow? We made some hypotheses (scientific guesses), we put him back under the knife and chopped Jack into pieces. Parts of him were put into two jars. We made sure that each jar had mold. One jar we poked holes into the lid and labeled Aerobic (with air) and the other we put a lit candle into and screwed the lid on real tight so the flame would use up all the air and we labeled it Anaerobic (without air). We predicted, remembering that we had earlier guessed mold needed air, water and 'food' to grow, which jar would grow the most mold. Then we left Jack to do his thing. And boy is he doing his thing! He grew a baby! We are thrilled! We will watch the two Jacks for the rest of the year and compare and contrast what is happening in each jar. Team Awesome is making plans to help the baby pumpkin plant grow and grow and grow. Hmmm.... sounds like another experiment.
