Staff Writer

Spending time at an amusement park may not be parents’ ideal way for their children to spend a school day, but last week Kenenbunk High School students were at Funtown to learn.

Kennebunk physics students last Friday joined more than 2,000 other students from the region at the Saco park to apply what they learned this year by riding roller coasters and bumper cars to the laws of  physics.

“It is probably the best example of applying physics to the world around us,” said Kennebunk High School teacher Dan Savoy.

Savoy said that anyone can get out of bed and see examples of Isaac Newton’s law of physics in action, but amusement park rides are some of the best places to observe so many examples in a controlled environment.

For example, the ride Dragon’s Descent, is one of a few places where riders can experience a drop faster than the rate of gravity and walk away unscathed.

The park also is the rare place where students can be found eating Dip-n-Dots ice cream and cotton candy at 9:30 a.m. while doing physics homework.

High school students Philip Hussey and Henry Schmidt stood on a bridge in the amusement park observing the way the Casino ride was moving and what mechanical mechanism was making it move that way.

Observing suits Hussey just fine; he’s not much of a ride person, he said.

“It’s a great way to see what we’ve learned in class and apply it to something,” Hussey said. “It’s 10 times better than English.”

Schmidt agreed.

“It’s a fun way to spend a day,” Schmidt said.

Savoy said eight years ago one of his students gave a presentation to him why Funtown’s Physics Day was much more than a day to blow off classes and would be a benefit to all students.

“She made a very good argument,” Savoy said.

Since than more than 1,000 Kennebunk High School students have experienced at least one physics day at the park.

“Their final exam is coming up,” Savoy said. “This helps them review.”

Savoy admits the day also allows students to blow off steam before finals.

Funtown has been holding Physics Day for local high schools for the last 17 years.

This year, Ed Hodgdon, the park’s marketing manager, said more than 2,500 students from 49 schools in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts participated in Physics Day.

“Students learn about momentum on Grand Prix racers and bumper cars, velocity on the Excalibur and Wild Mouse coasters and G-forces on the Dragon’s Descent,” Hodgdon said in a press release.

Savoy said many physics teachers actually worked with engineers at Funtown to create the original park rides without realizing they would one day make Physics Day possible.

While students may run from ride to ride, they tossed words such as “acceleration” and “velocity” and solve complex math equations while they stand in line. Each ride has a worksheet page from Funtown dedicated to physics problems and observations. Some students pull out small calculators tucked into back pockets while solving the problems.

Kennebunk senior Hannah Eastman rode Excalibur, a wood-framed roller coaster, with an accelerator she made in class to help measure forces of gravity.

Eastman and her ride partner, Milla Jorgenson, used the accelerator and other devices to fill in their worksheets and answer questions such as how much kinetic energy must be dissipated to stop a full train on the coaster.

One school offered students extra credit on their final exam if they dressed up as nerds wearing suspenders, lots of mismatched plaid and white tape around the middle of their glasses.

“That’s mean,” Savoy laughed. “I don’t know if my kids would do it.”

But, he said, the point of the day is to get students to realize physics is all around them.

“We want them to be able to use all the terms they learned in physics class over the years. It’s still applicable,” he said.

Jake Messer, a Kennebunk High school senior, said he’ll do most of his workbook at home, but has been observing physics in each of the rides, especially while riding in the front seat of Excalibur.

“I felt some major G-forces on that one,” he said.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.