Amusement Park Physics/Precalculus

A Day in the Amusement Park Laboratory

The LHS Precalculus/Physics block class adventured to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City for Physics Day at the park. The group of students and staff were among very few students who actually collected data on the amusement park rides and were the first group to receive permission to use Calculator Based Laboratories (CBL) and accelerometers on the park attractions. The following pages are the lesson plan for the amusement park trip and an account of the trip itself. As you will see, it was a fun, challenging, and educationally rewarding experience.

Lesson Plan -	LHS staff member Jerel Welker received the 1999 National Science Teachers Assocation (NSTA) / Toshiba laptop grant for the lesson plan. The plan shown here is the lesson plan for this grant with some additional comments following our latest trip. As you read through the plan, you will note that one of the requirements was to denote how a laptop was a necessity for the project. In this case, the downloading and backing up of data is essential to the project and is accomplished through the laptop.
Planning / Preparing for the Trip	One of the keys to a successful program is the student's ability to program the CBL, make choice about when and how to collect data, and manage problems which arise in the process of data collection. The ability to go to a local park or otherwise collect data is a good experience to simulate the amusement park trip. One can also collect good data in a local park on equipment such as a swing, merry-go-round, and slide.
The Trip	Students and staff met at LHS at 4:30 a.m. and boarded a charter bus as part of a Toshiba America Foundation grant and headed for Worlds of Fun Amusement Park in Kansas City, MO. At the park, teams of students were charged with collecting data on amusement park attractions. To aid in intepreting the data students were provided with a "notepad" of various park attractions in which information such as where, when, and how the data were collected along with notations about the feeling of the ride at different portions of the amusement park attraction.
Follow-up / Assessment	The follow-up/assessment aspect of the project provides the most important aspect of the learning. Students are given the opportunity to study, prepare and make reports and presentations regarding the data which was collected. These take on a variety of forms depending upon the amusement park and the data collected. The final exam was the conclusion to this project.

Amusement Home | Lesson Plan | Planning | The Trip | Ripcord | Assessment | Final Exam