Charles City eighth-graders combine math, science and art in collaborative project

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A “Data Meets World” project at the Charles City Middle School combined science, math and art to help eighth graders understand about mass, force and their relationship to acceleration, then display the results with their own artistic interpretations.

The project was the result of a collaboration between middle school science teacher Amanda Rahmiller and math teacher Megan Vanderloop. As part of the several-week cross-curricular program, several members of companies and organizations also visited the school to give examples of how they use graphs and data in their work to make decisions.

Eighth-grader Nya Nosbisch explained about the project: “We used a cart and we used different masses on a hook and we let go of the cart and watched it move to the end of the track, and we took the different speeds and each time we added more mass to the end and each time it got slower or faster, depending on how much mass we had.”

Showing the wooden panel where she had plotted the data with nails, Nosbisch explained that the slope of the line showed the different forces and acceleration. She then turned the graph into an art project with colored string connecting the nails.

Eighth-grader Edie Collins added, “We had two different labs. We had these carts that were determining the acceleration. We figured out how much acceleration would go up with how much force we had. We had different tables and we had to determine the mass and whether the mass had anything to do with it or if it was just the acceleration and the force.

“We had to do three trials with each one and find the average, and each of our tables determined where one of these points would be,” she said, referring to data points on a two-dimensional chart.

“We’re really learning how acceleration and force collaborate with each other, and whether acceleration has anything to do with the force, and if the mass has anything to do with it. In my opinion it teaches us a lot about how to use graphs and how they work,” Collins said.

Eighth-graders Mallory Cook and Kinleigh Bahe demonstrated the equipment. Showing a small electronic cart, they explained how it was attached to a string and weights were attached to the other end of the string to pull the cart along a track. Attaching more weights to the string increased the force pulling on the cart. Students could also attach larger weights to the cart itself, increasing the mass of the cart.

“The carts have accelerometers in them and they connect wirelessly to some iPads that we’ve got,” said science teacher Amanda Rahmiller, adding that this was the first time the students had used the devices.

“Their measurements are very accurate,” she said of the equipment.

The students discovered that the greater the force applied, the faster the cart would accelerate. Conversely, the more mass the cart had, the slower it would accelerate, and the students used various combinations of force and mass to plot data points.

“With their experiment for force and acceleration – since it’s a proportional relationship, a linear relationship – that was the slope of the line they had to find in math class,” Rahmiller said.

The guest speakers who gave practical examples of how such charts and data can be used were Jason Walker of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Esther Pistek and Tanya Heerts from Zoetis, Mike Siepker and Theresa Shay from Iowa DNR Fisheries, Benedict Miller from the Iowa State Patrol and Pete Hjelmstad from the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Middle School Principal Joy Tayler said the project was going over well with the students.

“If you look around, the level of engagement is pretty high,” Taylor said in one of the classrooms Wednesday afternoon.

After the charts had been plotted, the information was transferred to wooden panels using nails to represent the X and the Y axes and the data points. From there the students created their own art on the panels.

The type of art was up to each student, said student Collins. “You could pick whatever you wanted to draw. A lot of people did splatter paint and you could pick what color string you wanted. You had free range on the creativity.”

Rahmiller said they had been in touch with Karl Haglund, assistant director at the Charles City Arts Center, regarding the science-and-math-inspired art the students had created.

“The hope is we can find a day we can put them on display for a week or so and have a couple of nights where the kids stand by their work and explain it to people like an open house,” she said.