Armed with physics packets, sunscreen and Dramamine, CHS physics students boarded the bus to Cedar Point on Thursday, May 18. 

Every year, Jonathan Thomas-Palmer brings his FOS IV Physics class to the famous amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio to participate in an end-of-the-year project that acts as an alternative to a final exam. His twelfth-grade students spent weeks working on labs about different rides and deciding how to collect data once they were there. 

“[It’s something] I did when I was a student,” Thomas-Palmer said. “It’s just a really great end-of-year activity where we take everything [students] have learned so far in physics and combine it all into a giant event.” 

James Azim started his day “slow,” and decided to work his way up to scarier rides after lunch.

“We started with the gondola just to see everything,” Azim said. “Then, we went to ‘Wild Mouse’ which was really fun.”

Scared of heights, Azim opted out of rides such as Windseeker, which swung riders at a 45-degree angle over 30 stories in the air. But by the end of the day, Azim had been on Rougarou, Corkscrew and Millenium Force, all of which boast the highest “thrill level” at Cedar Point.

Thomas-Palmer’s favorite ride in the park is Valravn, which he dubs a “good combination” of thrills and physics concepts.

“There’s a visual thrill of hanging over that edge right at the beginning of the ride, and then falling straight down and going through loops,” Thomas-Palmer said. “[And,] you get to experience all the things that we’ve been talking about. You get to experience the number of G’s… you get to feel the conservation of mechanical energy [and] all sorts of different things. Cedar Point is a giant physics amusement park.”

Azim believes the trip is a good alternative to a final exam.

“It’s really applicable to what we’ve learned in class this year,” Azim said. “I feel like we should do stuff like this in all of our classes.”