It’s Raining Pumpkins At Matignon!

The Matignon community celebrated Halloween in school on Friday, and the outcome was more treat than trick. 

Students and teachers were asked to come to school dressed up for Halloween. A variety of costumes filled the halls – from dalmatians to dinosaurs, the students and teachers went above and beyond with their creativity! A costume contest was held for students to vote for their favorite costumes from both the students and the teachers. Here’s a look at some of the costumes from Friday:

Gianna M ‘23 as an Inflatable Dinosaur (Student Winner)

Laura B ‘23 as a nun

Domenic H ‘22 as Maroon 5         

Mr. Welsh getting abducted by an alien!

Mr. McCormack as a Dalmatian

Mr. Dujardin as a Bible Character

Congrats to the costume contest winners!

Students – Gianna M ‘23 as a Dinosaur

Teachers – Mrs. Mastrogiovanni as Hand Sanitizer

At lunch, the Physics teacher, Mr. Garber, held a pumpkin drop from the roof of the school! I was able to interview him about the event.

Question: What inspired you to conduct this experiment?

Mr. Garber: “I used to teach at Boston University, and every year there used to be a pumpkin drop. A lot of physics departments around the country will do things like this to demonstrate the testing of gravity around Halloween.”

Question: Can you explain the science behind the pumpkin drop?

Mr. Garber: “Galileo’s idea, in theory, was that a heavy object and a small object, such as a big pumpkin and a small pumpkin, should fall at approximately the same rate. Aristotle said that a heavier pumpkin would fall faster. Galileo said they would fall approximately at the same rate if we ignore things like air resistance. The myth is that Galileo did this at the tower of Pisa, which actually never occurred, but it’s a great story.”

Question: What was the outcome of the experiment?

Mr. Garber: “We haven’t measured the results yet, but the pumpkins fell down, it was videotaped, and we will take those videos and use image analysis to actually measure the acceleration due to gravity on those pumpkins.”

Question: Were the outcomes predictable?

Mr. Garber: “They were fairly predictable, yes.”

Large pumpkin being dropped from the roof