This year, the annual Physics Day held at the Six Flags Amusement Park was on April 29 and students at CHS who take a Physics course or are in the Physics Club participated in it.

“It’s been around longer than I’ve been teaching and at Six Flags parks all over,” Physics teacher Gabriel De La Paz said. “The first class I took to Six Flags was in Chicago 17 years ago.”

“It was sometime in the mid to late eighties,” Physics teacher Rex Rice said. “When I moved to St. Louis in 1989, the event existed.”

Students taking Physics courses are going to this event for class reasons and the Physics Club is going to help out.

“The Physics Club ran a ‘help desk’ where students can go if they have any questions about the work,” De La Paz said. “They were an extra set of helping hands for the teachers and chaperones.”

Students taking Physics courses, particularly freshmen, gain much from this experience.

“It’s a chance to see the physics they’ve learned in the classroom applied to something in the “real world,” De La Paz said. “It’s a good review of all the motion, forces and energy ideas they’ve been learning.”

“Physics Day was created to allow students to perform physics experiments in the extremely large physics laboratory known as an amusement park,” Rice said. “Students gain an opportunity to apply the physics that they have learned throughout the year in a fun and exciting way as they analyze the physics associated with the rides.”

Freshman Carly Beard had similar reasons for going.

“From Physics Day, I think that I’ll gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of physics,” Beard said. “It’s truly remarkable how physics has been applied to make life more efficient, safe and fun.”

De La Paz and Rice also know the day is rewarding and is worth it.

“I think students gain a better appreciation for the application of physics to the understanding of everyday phenomena when they take the physics learning outside of the classroom,” Rice said. “This is particularly true when where you go is as stimulating as an amusement park.”

“Physics Day gives students an opportunity to experience the ideas we’ve been working on all year in a fun and engaging setting,” De La Paz said. “It provides observations that are much more intense than we can do in the classroom. Doing the motion detector lab or riding the hovercraft is great, but getting turned upside-down in a loop or being dropped in freefall is an even more powerful way to learn.”

This is also the reason why the Physics teachers encourage students to ride on something during this day.

“You don’t have to ride a roller coaster at all, but you should ride something to get that feeling for the physics ideas,” De La Paz said.’

Rice also wants students to not miss out on the rides.

“I don’t think that you come to the same understanding of what is going on during the rides by watching others ride,” Rice said. “Most students find at least some rides that they are comfortable with riding, but I feel badly for the students who can’t do it all as I do believe that they miss out on much of what makes Physics Day such a rewarding experience.”

Some students are excited about this day but have other reasons to be worried.

“I am excited to ride the rides, but I am nervous that the amount of work will ruin the day,” freshman Sophia Rotman said.

Freshman Ben Diamond also has his thoughts on the day.

“I’m excited for Physics Day because I love amusement parks,” Diamond said. “I have also been enjoying physics so I’m expecting a good time. I’m not very excited about the packets we will have to fill out because I’ve heard from countless students that it is a lot of work.”

Unfortunately for many freshmen, this was more of a stressful day than a fun experience.

“Physics day was worth a full day of my time, but Physics Day could be called ‘Stress day’ or ‘Work day’ for me,” Beard said. “My group and I worked diligently for three hours before the buses even left for Six Flags, and spent the majority of our five hours at the park completing our work packets. However, by the end of the day, we hadn’t finished the bare minimum of what our teacher expected. By the end our visit, we were exhausted and upset, all because of the quantity and difficulty of the work. For future Physics Days, students may gain more from the experience if they feel less pressured.”

Diamond also believes that it was not a fun day.

“I didn’t think that Physics Day was very enjoyable,” Diamond said. “I spent around 80 percent of the time working on the packets rather than riding the rides.”

“Physics Day was better than school, but the work was too overwhelming to have fun,” Rotman said.

Freshman Claire Lisker felt Physics Day was fine but like many others, thought it was stressful.

“Riding some roller coasters and being surrounded by other physics students made Physics Day fun,” Lisker said. “ However, I do wish the work load had been a bit lighter.”

Though many complained, freshman Rilke Griffin enjoyed the day.

“I love Six Flags, roller coasters, and physics, so it was an all around awesome day,” Griffin said. “ If we had had less time, it would have been really rushed and not fun. I learned a lot about physics that has to do with energy, because we barely touched on it in class but doing it at Six Flags gave me a chance to apply it and understand it better.”