Our Field Trip and Student Background:

My name is Sarah Cramer and I am a high school math teacher at Claremont Academy, an urban public school in Worcester, MA that serves 530 students in grades 7-12. We plan to take the sophomore class to Six Flags New England at the end of the school year for a physics field trip. At the amusement park, students will study the gravitational and acceleration forces on the roller coasters they ride using the smartphone app Ride Forces. Due to the pandemic, this will be our first major field trip in two years!

Of all the incredibly perseverant, intellectual, and creative students at our school, 94.1% are classified as high needs and 86.3% as low income, and all receive free lunch. As such, we want students to at most only have to pay $10 to attend this field trip. Because our district was remote/hybrid for almost 1.5 years, our current sophomores could not fundraise in previous grades to offset the cost of this trip like other sophomore classes have in the past. That means we need significant help covering the cost of buses and Six Flags tickets. We greatly appreciate anything you can donate!

Why are we going to Six Flags to study physics? Read our learning plan below:

In physics class, our students have been studying acceleration and gravitational forces (g-forces). While they have conducted labs within the classroom and online simulations to understand these concepts, we thought it would be an amazing real-world and hands-on “lab” experience for them to go to Six Flags and actually experience the mechanics of acceleration and g-forces on roller coasters. Students will use an app called Ride Forces to collect data from every roller coaster they ride at the park, which will allow them not only to map and compare acceleration and gravitational force changes around the ride in physics class after the field trip, but also to understand how technology can be leveraged for educational experiences. At Claremont Academy, we strive to provide authentic learning experiences that help students understand the relevance of our curriculum. Giving students the opportunity to collect and analyze their own physics data is an exceptional experience, one that positions them as real researchers/scientists and turns a leisure activity into a memorable educational experience. We hope that students will never again be able to ride a roller coaster without thinking about the acceleration and gravitational forces at play!

Before the field trip to Six Flags, students will study data online about the roller coasters at Six Flags New England: ride features and dimensions, photos of different elements within each ride, videos of the ride, etc. They will make predictions using prior knowledge about the acceleration and gravitational forces experienced on each ride. Students will choose at least one roller coaster to focus on during their trip to the park and will be responsible for collecting data from that roller coaster. Students will download the app Ride Forces on their smartphones and will use that to record their ride experience on their chosen roller coaster in the park. When students return to their physics classroom after the field trip, they will view their different graphs and data from the app and export it to a shared database. Students will complete a written analysis of the data and present their findings.

Again, we greatly appreciate anything you can donate! If you have questions about your donation, please contact me using the feature on this website.