Preamble

Friday, May 12

6:30 AM: Mary awoke with the realization that the day she had been preparing for had finally arrived—Physics Day! Forty of her students were heading out to the near-by amusement park for a day of physics and phun. All of her organizing, the student practicing and planning, was about to get tested in what promised to be a fun way.

At school, Mary rolled out the box of accelerometers, her bag of electronic instruments, her camcorder, the box of handouts, and her envelope with park passes and list of student contact numbers. A quick check on materials for the students in her other classes who would not be going, and she was ready to head out.

Arriving at the assembly point, she found easily half of the students were already there. Several helped her and her fellow chaperone Mark, an English teacher, get organized. One student was put in charge of checking out the packets of worksheets, another handed out the instruments (one baggie per group), a third handed out the electronic equipment, and Mark handed out the passes as students boarded the bus. Mary checked students off her list as they boarded the bus, creating her attendance sheet for the day.

8:30 AM: Once everyone was aboard, Mary anticipated the next step. She had made arrangements with the bus driver, who stopped at a quiet, straight section of road. There the students took out their accelerometers and prepared to measure longitudinal acceleration, while one was tasked with videotaping the speedometer. The driver accelerated the bus as smoothly as she could up to a safe speed and then slowed smoothly to a stop. Students quickly recorded their values before the driver repeated the experimental run. Then it was off for the one-hour drive to the park. The buzz throughout the bus was students checking with one another about their measurements and how they also indicated the forces that acted on them during the accelerations.

But the students were not finished with their pre-park activities. As the bus entered the entrance ramp for the freeway, the radius of which had been determined in advance using satellite imagery, they had their accelerometers out measuring the centripetal force as the bus went around the curve at a speed that was called out from the front. Now they could calculate whether the measured acceleration agreed with theory.

9:30 AM: As they parked the bus and before heading for the entrance, Mary reminded the students about where they needed to be and when they should be there once they went into the park. She also reiterated the meeting place and time for the trip home. Then it was off to the park, being careful to not get in front of the excited students.

The two adults checked signals on the way into the park. Mark was going to hang out with Mary most of the morning so he could get a better idea of what students were doing. He was developing an idea for incorporating their day at the park into one of his in-class essays. Mary carried two large canvas bags so she could gather up equipment and packets as students finished with them. They also agreed to meet up for lunch so they would have enough energy to keep up with the students all day.

9:45 AM: Mary met her students by the Carousel as planned, and began a walking tour of the park. They discussed the rides, the physics behind the operation of the ride, and what sorts of forces the riders might be experiencing in various places. She didn’t cover all the rides, as she found from the previous year that doing this had focused the students’ thinking and helped them get down to work on their assignments for the day. She was glad she had made notes the previous year so she could repeat the most valuable activities and improve on ones that needed it.

11:00 AM: Mary had gone on one roller coaster with Mark, demonstrating how the hand-held vertical accelerometer indicated the forces acting on them. He promptly renamed it a “Gravity Stick,” a name Mary considered using next year in her materials. In addition to greeting teachers she knew from other schools, Mary even had time to watch one of the contests the park sponsored during Physics Day. But now it was time to be at their meeting spot. Two groups came by with similar questions, and Mary was glad to help them think through both their data collection and how to interpret their results. “I’m sure their results will be a lot better with just a little help than they would have been without,” Mary thought.

12:30 PM: Things seemed to be going just fine. The electronic equipment had been checked out and used; her camcorder had been used by student groups three times. Prep work for their projects was going well from all appearances. Time for a quick bite.

…..

4:30 PM: Mary arrived at their assembly point just outside the park entrance. A quick count indicated that all the students were there, so it was off to the bus for their trip home. As the students boarded the bus, they checked in their accelerometers if they still had them, and Mark collected their packets of work. During the trip home, Mary would scan the work to see how complete it was at that point and give them a progress grade. Before they arrived at school, the packets were returned so students could complete their calculations and other analyses over the weekend.

5:45 PM: Tired and happy, the students and chaperones arrived back at school, another successful Physics Day behind them. After storing the equipment and checking her email messages, Mary headed off for a quiet dinner and relaxing weekend, knowing that the coming week filled with checking the packet work, and time spent finishing their projects was going to be a great way to wrap up this year’s Physics Day. She could hardly wait to see what the students created for their projects. If they were as good as last year, it would be a terrific exhibition.

The preceding is a work of fiction. The names do not represent specific teachers or students but are composites based on the author’s experiences.