1 / 6

The Science of Fun

The Science of Fun . 25 Years of Amusement Park Physics. The Origins of Amusement Park Physics. In 1977 Carolyn Sumner at the Houston Science Museum created a summer program for elementary students.

kasa
Download Presentation

The Science of Fun

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Science of Fun 25 Years of Amusement Park Physics

  2. The Origins of Amusement Park Physics • In 1977 Carolyn Sumner at the Houston Science Museum created a summer program for elementary students. • The program wanted to teach young students about space and space travel. She wanted to create a way where students could experience what an astronaut would feel on a rocket ship without having to actually launch them into space. • She felt that taking them to a local amusement park was the best way to do this.

  3. The Origins of Amusement Park Physics • Carolyn presented information about her program a couple of years later at the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) Conference. • A number of physics teachers attended that information session and realized that this was too good an idea to be limited to elementary students at a summer camp. • An informal organization of these teachers was formed and Amusement Park Physics was born. They shared ideas and activity sheets for amusement park rides. • My job was to create sheets for Marriott’s Great American in San Francisco. That Amusement Park Physics program began in 1982.

  4. The Origins of Amusement Park Physics • In 1987, I moved to Vancouver with my family and was pleased to find out that there was an amusement park. • I approached Playland staff and they agreed to allowing secondary physics students to come to the amusement park on a special day in May. • The first year we about 400 students attend. • In 1990, we added a program for Junior Secondary students and in 1993 we added an elementary version.

  5. Amusement Park Physics Today • 2012 marks the 25th Anniversary of the Amusement Park Physics program. We now have 7 different packages of materials that match the IRPs for the following classes: • The Science of Fun (English elementary version) • La Science du Plaisir (French elementary version) • Science 8 • Science 10 • Chemistry 11/12 (new in 2012) • Biology 12 (new in 2011) • Physics 11/12

  6. What the program tries to do • The purpose of the Amusement Park Physics program is to provide students with practice in applying to real situations, some of the concepts learned in the classroom. • It use experiential learning in an authentic setting to perform scientific investigations. The investigations are linked to the learning outcomes in each specific class. • The investigation involves: qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis and instrument measurements. These three approaches are brought together in a holistic approach to learning.

More Related