Amusement park physics is a no-risk teaching and learning endeavor. Students engage in real-world physics applications requiring no extrinsic motivation other than the opportunity to go to an amusement park. Let’s begin with some not-so-great amusement park rides and the physics that explains them. After that, you will find several online resources you can use before, during or after a visit to the park to reinforce and assess conceptual understanding.

On July 3, 2009, Popularmechanics.com published an article about five theme park rides described as “pushing the limits of common sense.” Each presentation gives a brief description of the ride as well as a photo, and most have an accompanying video clip. The five rides include a waterslide with a perfectly circular loop, a medieval-style human catapult, a zero gravity roller coaster, the world’s first Ferris wheel, and an Alpine slide.

The problem with a perfectly circular loop is that the high g-forces “exerted when entering and exiting the inversion of a perfect circular loop are enough to break a person’s neck.” The human catapult was all good fun, until someone got hurt. In one case, the net meant to catch the projectile-person tore, and in another, a person missed the net altogether, resulting in death. The roller coaster has no reported life-threatening qualities so long as the rider is properly harnessed, just the bonus of temporary zero gravity.

The world’s first Ferris wheel is included for its context. Built in 1893 it was “284 feet tall, with 36 cars capable of holding 60 people a piece (for a total load of 2400 riders). A single revolution took 10 minutes.” One can imagine how people at the time may have reacted to such a novelty. The Alpine slide is a concrete and fiberglass slide people go down while perched on a “sled” with virtually no brakes and no control. If one is ejected, one will endure dangerous and painful skin removal at the least, and broken bones and death at the most.

How to Turn This News Event into an Inquiry-Based, Standards-Related Science Lesson

To introduce the idea of amusement park physics, consider showing your students one of the video clips from the Popularmechanics.com page. You could first ask: Why do we find amusement park rides attractive? What do they elicit in us? How much is real and how much is perception? What is a catapult? How could the concept be converted to an amusement park attraction? Then show the video.

Have students use appropriate terms and labeled illustrations to articulate ways to design a safer version of the human catapult or other rides. Since the idea is to present the illusion of danger, not actual danger, students will have to stay within the limits of physical laws. For elaboration, they can make scale models and/or provide written explanation of the physics concepts involved.

See the Middle School Portal’s exemplary resources blog for a post titled Physics Fun at the Fair.

Here are additional resources from the National Science Digital Library Middle School Portal: Amusement Park Physics: What are the Forces Behind the Fun?; Playground Physics; Amusement Park Freefall; and Data Collection at the Amusement Park

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