What do you do with a jack-o’-lantern after Halloween is over? How about rolling it off the roof of the Carnegie Science Center!
The first ever Great Pumpkin Smash will feature explosive pumpkin-related demos throughout the day and is free with paid general admission.
“We wanted to do something fun around Halloween (and of course to teach physics because it is the Carnegie Science Center), and we are also doing more and more green initiatives and thought wouldn’t it be great to bring in pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns after Halloween, teach them physics, and roll them off the roof but then also compost the science materials and do some science around that,” said Mike Hennesy, Program Development Coordinator at the Carnegie Science Center.
Hennesy says that they try to make sure that there is a fun learning component in everything, where you’re having fun and learning at the same time.
“So while we’re rolling the pumpkins off the roof and making them go ‘SPLAT!’ we are going to determine how much each pumpkin weighs, and then measure how long it takes for each one of them to fall, and then basically do some equations and work around Newton’s Laws of Motion,” Hennesy said.
That same day, on Saturday, November 3rd, they will be making pumpkin flavored liquid nitrogen ice cream in their kitchen theater where they will be talking a little about the pumpkin and food and also the science of cryogenics. As they make instant pumpkin flavored ice cream, they will also have pumpkin baked goods, pumpkin lattes, and pumpkin biscotti available for purchase.
