Second-grade students at Taft Elementary School and first-grade students at St. Mary Catholic School learned all about pumpkins.

Kalene Berte, Ag In The Classroom coordinator for Farm Bureau, used paper plates to create a life-cycle wheel to help the students learn how pumpkins grow.

“There are six different views that depict the various stages of a pumpkin’s growth, including the seed, sprout, vine, flowers, a green pumpkin, and an orange pumpkin,” Berte said.

Students also got to inspect a real pumpkin vine and its flowers, plus they used a tape measure to quantify how long the vine was.

-Submitted photo
First grade students at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Humboldt learn about pumpkin vines.

“They learned that some pumpkin vines can grow over 20 to 30 feet,” Berte said.

Next, the kids had the chance to dig in, literally, with their hands to discover the different parts of a pumpkin, including the seeds.

“I explained that pumpkins have hundreds of seeds that we can use to grow more pumpkins,” said Berte, who had the students place the pumpkin seeds in piles of tens to help the students practice their counting skills. “I related it to how one ear of corn has hundreds of kernels (seeds) that can be planted to make more corn.”

Part of the lesson included information about the important role of pollination in pumpkin production and how different pollinators are vital to this process. Berte also helped the kids learn the different parts of a pumpkin, how those parts can be used, what parts are healthy for people to eat (pumpkins are a good source of Vitamin A, which is important for clear vision), and whether pumpkins are a fruit or a vegetable.

Do pumpkins sink or float? The kids used pumpkins of various sizes to conduct a hands-on experiment, and they learned that yes, pumpkins can float.

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Students in Krystal Miller’s second grade class at Taft Elementary School empty out a pumpkin during an Ag in the Classroom lesson.

Before the pumpkin lesson ended, each student received a pumpkin-themed dot-to-dot worksheet, a worksheet where they could label the various parts of a pumpkin, pumpkin-themed pencils and a tasty pumpkin-spice cookie donated by Dewey’s Bakery.

“Thank you to the schools in Humboldt for letting us share Ag In The Classroom lessons,” said Berte, who also appreciates Farm Bureau volunteer LuAnn Christopher for helping with AITC. “I would like to do a special shout out to Dewey’s Bakery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for donating a box of pumpkin-spice cookies for every classroom and supporting ag education here in Iowa.”

-Submitted photo
A St. Mary’s Catholic School student experiments to see if pumpkins float. (They do.)