We have done a fair amount of predicting recently, using one little pumpkin three ways.
We learned that scientists always make their best guess of what might happen, before conducting an experiment, so that they can learn from it, no matter what the result.
Our first experiment, last week, was to see whether a pumpkin would float or not. We all drew what we thought would happen before testing it, and we drew what actually happened after. Some students thought the pumpkin would sink because it is heavy. Some students thought it would float because they know of other heavy things that float, or because water is also heavy. Great thinking! Here we are watching the experiment, and our observation sheets on the science board.
Our next two predictions were about how many lines, or ridges, were on our pumpkin and how many seeds were inside it. You can see the guesses that we shared in the picture below.
During centre time, most students came to help me trace a line on the side of the pumpkin so that we could count them, and they got to reach in and take some seeds out, placing 10 in each cup.
When we finally got all the seeds into cups, we all stood around and counted up the lines and seeds. For the seeds, we tried counting by 10, and we had 4 tries at this, since we had over 400 seeds!! Our total was exactly 453 seeds and 21 lines. A lot more than we predicted!
It was a good counting day!