How Fast Do Pumpkins Fall from The Sky?

Submitted by Syosset Schools:

It was raining pumpkins at Syosset High School, in the Syosset Central High School District, on Oct. 27 as physics students at the school conducted an experiment on gravity’s acceleration rate with the help of a fire truck and a bevy of pumpkins.

Using a bucket ladder from the Syosset Fire Department, the students, under the direction of physics teacher Mark Hanik, dropped pumpkins and other objects from the highest point of the ladder to calculate the actual rate of acceleration due to gravity.

From the ground the young lab technicians used a stopwatch to clock the time elapsed for the objects to fall. The experiment aimed to prove that 9.81 meters per second squared is the actual formula for the acceleration rate of gravity.

A crowd of students gathered at a safe distance to watch the pumpkins drop and splatter on the parking lot below. The pumpkin drop is held every year at Syosset High School and has become a tradition to which the students look forward every fall.

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Photo: Physics students in Mark Hanik’s class get their pumpkin ready for the big drop.