Fall Fest is the most exciting part of the year for some students. Mrs. Jeanine Ging, sixth grade math and science teacher, organizes the event every year. Starting in October, students start learning about central tendency. Or as commonly known, mean, median, mode, and range. Students do this by using pumpkins. 

“We grew 40 ourselves and the rest of the pumpkins were from Yecks,” stated Ging. Students use pumpkins from various places that are local, or donated. Most of the pumpkins are sourced from Yeck’s Farm in Big Knob. Yeck’s is a local farm run by Garret Drutarosky, eighth grader, and his family.

“It takes days because we had spread out four events between days with taking stuff down and teaching, but as long as they learn and have fun,” Ging stated. The students use pumpkins to learn central tendency. They do this by counting pumpkins sizes, shapes, and amount.

“This is our seventh year with Fall Fest and we started with physics club teaching and mentoring but then it turned into a seven day event,” stated Ging. Fall Fest started in 2014 with the high school physics club coming down to the middle school to teach and mentor the students but it eventually evolved from that and turned into a major event for sixth graders.

Students also use mini trebuchets in the gym and launch weights. They calculate the distance the weight went and find the central tendency. When the final day of Fall Fest comes, the whole sixth grade goes up to the highschool to race pumpkin cars they made in the days prior, and to launch pumpkins from a giant trebuchet.