Silver Dollar City Turns Learning into Fun

Fair Grove High School took a select group of math students to Silver Dollar City for an interactive learning experience on Wednesday, April 20, 2022. 

Alivia Kimbriel (12) , Serenity Davis (12), Alex Bates (12), Nicky Hamp (12) , and Mrs. Hubbard also took 31 gifted middle schoolers as the students that went on the trip and were escorted by high school math teacher Mrs. Feldman. 

Mrs. Feldman shared, “Silver Dollar City provided a math and science curriculum broken up by levels.  Students were able to work on the packet on the way to the trip and get their work checked at designated stations throughout the park.  If you didn’t get the answers right, they had students from Nixa & Ozark that were there to help guide students.  The questions were all related to the rides and it was really neat!” 

“One of the main complaints about math is people get it in their head that they won’t ever use math in real life.  This is a really fun opportunity to reward the students who have found an area of study in which they are interested and have an opportunity to see problems in real life similar to those they might find in their career,” added Feldman. 

Silver Dollar City managed to intertwine fun and learning. Alivia stated,  “We had packets to fill out full of mostly physics questions. You had to ride the rides and time them to complete the problems. Every ride had its own set of problems, so it was a lot of fun and you learned about the rides as you went. Calculating speed, kinetic and potential energy, tangential force, and more of what you just experienced. Stations were set up to check your work with other students and you got credit for what you answered correctly.” 

Taking trips like this can be very important for students’ education. Nicky added, “I think these trips are important because it makes learning a bit more fun, as well as showing the students how their knowledge would be used in the real world. Plus it’s a fun trip with your friends.”

Serenity shared, “I would say it was successful because it helped me understand how much math is intertwined with any type of movement.” 

Finally Feldman stated, “It was fun to spend time with the class outside of the classroom setting.  We had a lot of laughs and it was also a good day to celebrate their *almost* conclusion of their high school career.”