Earth Day Recycling Demonstration: From Pumpkin Science to Compost

Exploring Pumpkins

Counting the Seeds

Number charts and place value pieces are the ideal for scaffolding students in the counting of HUNDREDS of seeds. Once the 100s charts are full, students grab the matching place value pieces, and then each group puts their place value pieces in a plastic baggie. Finally during small groups, we order/compare the amounts of seeds from each pumpkin!

Filling Our Pumpkins

Before lunch, Kara and I (I partnered with another 1st grade classroom) asked our classes to save a few pieces of trash. As we picked-up our classes, we collected the trash in a ziploc bag and kept it there until later in the day. Once our classes joined together, we decided together what to put in our pumpkin. In our pumpkin we put a plastic drinking straw, an aluminum can, a PB&J wrapped, plastic wrap, a granola bar wrapped, vegetables (cherry tomatoes and cucumbers), and an ice-cream wrapper. We wanted a variety of materials (metal, paper, plastic, organic) to ensure that our demonstration works!

Burying Our Pumpkins

Writing About Our Predictions

Returning to the classroom, we made predictions about what we would find when we dig the pumpkin up in April (on Earth Day). I gave students the sentence stem “When we dig up our pumpkin, I think…” and I expected them to finish the sentence and add a detail. Then, students added an illustration to match.

While I considered making a graphic organizer/handout for the activity, I did not want the responsibilities of keeping up with 23 sheets of paper until April…so our writing journals were the perfect sport for recording our ideas! (If you’re brave and want to keep a piece of paper for 6 months, you can snag these recording sheets.)

Before digging-up our pumpkin in April, we will revisit our predictions beforehand and then, write write/diagram our observations afterward. By April, we will be confidently writing paragraphs, so we will turn our learning into paragraphs. Students will have the choice of writing argumentative paragraphs about the importance of reducing waste and working to convince others to care for our Earth and/or inform/explain paragraphs about what happens to our trash.

Right now, I know the lesson was fairly “random”…and it is! We have not talked about protecting the Earth yet, so it seemed like a “just-because” lesson. As we learn more about caring for the Earth and as Earth Day approaches, this demonstration will come to life.

Digging Up Our “Pumpkin”

When we dig up the pumpkin in April, the pumpkin is ‘gone’ as will the vegetables inside the pumpkin, while the Diet Coke can, the drinking straw, and all the other inorganic materials are still be there! There are cheers of “Dig deeper!” and students are incredulous that the pumpkin has disappeared. Where could it have gone??

Pumpkin Jack 

Pumpkin Jack is a perfect literature companion to this activity. BUT don’t read the entire book or you will spoil the magic of the demonstration. I like to read the first few pages of Pumpkin Jack and then read the rest in April (Earth Day) to help explain the science behind the magic.

A Slides Overview

Are you at a school where you can’t dig outside to bury a pumpkin? Not in school on Earth Day? No worries! Here is a quick Google Slides presentation for you to share with you class. It even includes a SciShowKids video at the end!

It is the perfect opportunity to give students a real lesson on why reducing and recycling waste actually matters and what really happens to the trash we throw out! Our classes cannot wait for Earth Day (only 6 months away) to arrive so we can see the fruits of our labor. Until then, happy digging friends!