Students Create Roller Coasters
For the past month, students have been studying energy transfer in the context of amusement parks. They have created their own roller coasters, through which they were able to prove the law of conservation of energy. Now that students have grasped the idea of energy transfer in an amusement park, we are now tackling a debatable question that has valid arguments for both sides: Are roller coasters a necessary use of energy and creativity, or are they a waste of time and resources and do little to benefit society?
This year, Clemente has focused on integrating technology with education and the results have been extremely positive. Students enjoy having enormous amounts of information at their fingertips and being able to access information through multiple formats. Students were asked to conduct their research for this particular prompt on Padlet, which allows students and teachers to post different sources of information for viewers to access. It is an incredibly interactive website and students enjoy the aesthetic format. On the Padlet link, students were presented with many different sources of compelling information and were asked to synthesize the information and create a compelling argument paper.
Students came up with very unique arguments that analyzed multiple viewpoints, discussing topics such as roller coaster safety, amusement park economics, as well as the idea of leisure. This skill will be incredibly useful for Clemente’s juniors as they move into senior year, where well-written, creative persuasive papers are essential.