ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 13, 1996 TAG: 9604150041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
THE MAGNET SCHOOL STUDENTS are studying parabolas and quadratic equations as well as their practical applications in the Algebra I International Baccalaureate preparatory class.
Teacher Deborah Lyman's algebra class met in a baseball field Friday, but the students chased a rocket instead of a ball.
"Clear down range," Lyman shouted, as she began to press the handle of the air pump to power the rocket.
"Spotters and timers, get in place," she said. The William Ruffner Middle School students fanned out in the field, as if they were getting ready to catch fly balls.
Lyman pumped - up and down, up and down, up and down.
Suddenly, the small red plastic rocket with a white nose shot upward about 125 feet in the brisk wind, curved on its side and took a nose-dive to the ground.
Several students came running with a tape measure. The rocket had traveled 17 feet. Harold Wright, the student timer, said the flight had lasted 3.06 seconds.
Seventh-grader Myra Brown and her classmates recorded the distance and time in their notebooks.
"Let's do it again," Lyman told the students. "The more data we have, the better."
They launched the rocket six times in the baseball field at the rear of the school. It reached about the same altitude on each flight. The flight times ranged between 2.6 seconds and 3.25 seconds. The flight distances varied from 3 feet 5 inches to 24 feet 2 inches.
The seventh-graders at the Roanoke magnet school put the statistics about each flight in their notebooks. Next week, they will use the data to calculate and make a graph of the flight path.
They are studying parabolas in the Algebra I International Baccalaureate preparatory class. A parabola is one of the curves most used in science. If a baseball player hits a high fly, the path of the ball is nearly a parabola.
The goal, Lyman said, is to show students a direct physical application of what they're learning in the classroom - parabolas and quadratic equations - in the real world.
"It's simplistic, but it's a real-world model of how [the National Aeronautics and Space Administration] does it," Lyman said. "When you shoot rockets up, you have to know where they're coming down."
Using a quadratic equation, the students can calculate how far the rocket will travel and determine its location at any given moment in a flight, she said.
"It's fun. We've been studying this in class, and now we can see what it's about,'' Brown said. "We can figure out the flight path."
Mary Heide, another student, said she enjoys the complex calculations and equations in the algebra class. "It's easy and fun," Heide said, but a classmate shook her head and said the class is hard.
Because Ruffner is so close to Roanoke Regional Airport, Lyman had to get permission from the Federal Aviation Administration for the launch.
"I was on the phone with the FAA this morning, making sure everything was still OK," she said. "It was some experience."
The FAA had to clear the launch because of the potential for the small rocket to be sucked into a plane's engine, Lyman said.
Lyman said she decided to use the rocket to help teach the students about parabolas and quadratic equations because many of them are interested in space. "This has a direct application to the space program and shows them how the classroom work is related to it," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. 1. Jennifer Campbell, 13, preparesby CNBa rocket for liftoff as she and her seventh-grade classmates see the
practical use of higher math. 2. Students measure the distance that
a rocket traveled from the launch pad as part of an algebra
experiment at William Ruffner Middle School on Friday. color.