The Paris
High School Boat Regatta was in full force this year. With 18 students, Mrs. Block's AP Chemistry
class took to the lake to sail their cardboard and duct tape fleet. "At the end of the year, the Seniors
start to slow down once their tests are done and graduation approaches. I needed something to do with them to keep
them engaged and the boat race got their competitive juices flowing
again!" They receive cardboard
(compliments of Cargill) and a roll of duct tape to build their vessel - some designed
it to hold two or three people, while some had a single captain. At the old high school, Block's students
sailed their boats at the YMCA pool.
When the pool closed, the boat races stopped for a while. "My daughter was in AP Chemistry last
year and wanted the regatta revived so we found a spot on the lake that had a
dock and it was perfect - and cold!
Students inevitably sink and this time of year it is a brisk encounter
with Twin Lakes!" This year the
weather was not cooperating, but the students sailed on in the rain and made
the most of it - even taking a group swim at the end of the races. The project not only involves revisiting science
phenomena such as bouyancy, center of gravity, lots of math, the Archimedes
principle, and the scientific method - it also is used frequently in team
building and leadership seminars because of all the problems that arise and
must be dealt with using modification strategies and communication with
others. Mrs. Block would like to thank
Cargill for the donation of cardboard and the City for cleaning up the wet
cardboard that is left by the dumpster.
"Everyone is so supportive of this project and it is a great
learning experience! Students constantly
modify their boats as they scale up their original models and try to find a
surface area to mass ratio that will hold them once they get in their final
boat design. Many boat designs fold in
like a burrito or simply rip out when they get weight in them so it is fun to
see how each design holds up to an actual sailor or two."
