One parallel investigation that complements the study of seed growth is an exploration of the typical number of seeds found inside a variety of fruits and vegetables. Students collect data on seed totals, organize these data, and form conclusions about the number of seeds they can expect to find inside a particular fruit or vegetable. Students are able to see how much the individual seed totals for one type of vegetable or fruit can vary.

Children are naturally curious about the size of, number of, and arrangement of seeds inside fruits and vegetables. Many of their beginning seed questions are related to these topics. Initially, students don't expect there to be much variation in the seed counts for one type of fruit or vegetable. Students' first predictions for seed totals tend to be very inaccurate. Most students assume that the largest or heaviest individuals will contain the greatest number of seeds. As actual data is collected and recorded on line plots, students are able to analyze the variation they see and develop ideas about what might be a typical seed count for that type of fruit or vegetable. They begin to think about range, outliers, median and mode. They learn to discuss the shape of the data and what that might tell them.