Today two groups of students successfully dropped raw eggs onto my head from the roof of the school as I walked underneath. Last week another group of students did the same thing.
The students were taken to the roof of Lynn English High School to perform the experiment. They measured the height from the ground to the roof (14.0 meters, or about 46 feet). They calculated the amount of time it would take an egg to fall that distance, minus my height (1.7 meters, including a helmet). They then measured my velocity, using a stopwatch and a set of marks in the grass spaced at 5-meter intervals, as I walked along the side of the building. From my velocity and the time that it would take the egg to fall, they calculated the exact spot where I needed be when they released their egg.
My two honors physics classes have now performed the experiment. Last Thursday, one lab group out of five in my A-block class hit me squarely in the helmet. (A second group got me in the shoulder.) Today, two groups out of ten in my E-block class scored a bullseye. Next week my CP1 classes will get the same opportunity. All of the students will write up the experiment for a lab grade.
The Lynn Item ran an article about the egg drop lab on November 16. Here are links to some photos taken by the Item photographer.
An egg falls in front of my face as I walk by.
A student prepares to release her egg.
Thumbs up for a direct hit.
Taunting the students who missed.
Video taken by Lynn Item videographer
I got the idea from retired physics teacher Eva Sacharuk. She met with me several times last year—my first year teaching physics—to share some of her best physics experiments and demonstrations. When she told me about the egg drop lab, she said “If you do only one of the experiments I’m sharing with you, it should be this one—the kids love it!” And they do. One of my students was feeling too sick to come to school today, but there was no way she was going stay home if it meant missing the egg drop.
When I talked about the egg drop experiment during my interview at LEHS, Mr. Strangie (the principal) offered that if I took the job, I could take the kids up to the roof to do it. This was the first of several indications that the administration and I have similar views about the importance of positive, relevant experiences in education. Most students seem to stop enjoying science in school somewhere between the upper elementary grades and middle school. One of my goals as a physics teacher is to rekindle that enjoyment, and then attach it to the math that will let them apply it to the real-life situations that they encounter. Fun experiments that bestow bragging rights, like the egg drop, are an important part of achieving that goal.
