Thornapple Kellogg — It was an average Tuesday morning at Thornapple Kellogg High School, and then a class of physics students was called to be heroes.
Teacher Charley Vickers tasked ordinary high school juniors to use their extraordinary problem-solving and communication skills to save the town from a fictitious toxic spill, threatening to explode at any minute.
‘We did way better when we communicated.’
— junior Beck Danh
The disaster in question, a plastic cup full of corn kernels sitting in the middle of a red paper circle, challenged the students to use a system of strings and rubber bands to pick up one cup filled with the “toxic” kernels and pour it into a second, empty cup.
“This activity teaches them to design a system within a given list of constraints,” Vickers said. “They planned and practiced over three days to solve a complex challenge and afterwards, we will write a reflection to identify improvements.”
They had two minutes to complete the task and could not enter or even drift a finger into the “circle of death.” If any kernels spilled or the circle boundary was breached, the group failed to save the town.
One group used a bit of geometry and good communication to safely transfer the kernels out of the circle with 57 seconds to spare, a record time for the class, Vickers said.
Junior Beck Danh said the key to their group’s success was better communication.
“We talked to each other, told each other when to move and did way better when we communicated,” Beck said.
Beck’s group used three rubber bands instead of just one to create a square, controlled by four people holding four strings connected to each corner of the square.
“We used our class time to practice more than a lot of the other groups,” Beck said. “We adjusted our movements and worked together, and achieved success in the end.”
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