Duchesne’s AP Physics Class on Skates

On December 14th, Duchesne's AP Physics class headed to Memorial City Mall to ice skate before Winter Break. I conducted a quick interview with Duchesne's AP Physics teacher, Alaina Scorsone, to get some information after the class returned from the field trip.
 
Q: What were y’all learning in AP Physics that inspired this field trip?
 
A: A lot of the things we do in AP Physics and all the Physics courses is we assume that there is no friction when we do our calculations. [Our class] going ice skating is a good way to simulate very little or almost no friction so that the things we calculate make a little bit more sense.
 
Q: Did anyone in particular create the idea for this field trip? Is this a tradition that you have organized with other classes before?
 
A: I came up with the idea that we needed to ice skate, and I've never really taken a group field trip myself. I thought with these 9 girls it was a good time to give it a try. 
 
Q: What was the plan for the day?
 
A: The itinerary was pretty loose. We just wanted to have some fun ice skating and talking about physics. Some girls started talking about circular motion, and centripetal force as they rounded the curves on the ice skating rink. It was fun because ice skating really uses a lot of the applications they've seen [and studied] in class as it concerns momentum and energy transformations. 
 
The class left Duchesne at around 10 a.m. and arrived at the Memorial City Mall 15 minutes later at around 10:15. The class also had time and permission to shop, with many going to Zara, Sephora, and Tillys. At around 11 a.m., the class started heading to the indoor rink. Junior Kate Davidson shared her experience, “It was fun, we were all at the rails in the beginning, but we got the hang of it”. Senior Echo Malinowski-Cunningham commented, “It was super fun to learn about frictionless surfaces during the MOD and then get to skate on one”. After the skating concluded, students made trips to the food court where they could purchase any lunch they wanted. Some students ate McDonald's while others selected sushi bento boxes. The class departed Memorial City Mall at around 12:30 p.m. so the students and teacher chaperones could get back to Duchesne for their next classes. 
 
At the end of my interview, Mrs. Scorsone hinted at the exciting possibility of more ice skating field trips, stating that "I could potentially see this [ice skating] as a new tradition for my AP classes in the future". 
 
This field trip was wonderful to end the year in a unique, educational way, and slowly transition to a much-needed winter break.