Amusement Park Physics Day support material from NASA
Each spring, NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio supports Physics Days at nearby amusement parks with educational activities such as poster displays and hands-on demonstrations. Available here are several NASA Glenn Physics Day products.
Topic Index
- Posters - Acceleration Match Game, Drop Tower Comparison, and NASA Roller Coaster in the Sky
- Middle school educator guide - Amusement Park Physics with a NASA Twist
- Links - Amusement parks near Cleveland, Ohio
Comments on the Physics Day products and this web page are welcome. Send them to Richard DeLombard at NASA Glenn.
Poster files to download:
Many educators have requested copies of the posters which have been displayed at the amusement parks. These posters are available here in PDF format unless specified otherwise.
Acceleration Match Game 
This is a game which involves matching acceleration traces measured on amusement park rides with a description of possible rides. Several versions of this popular poster are available based on measurements taken at two parks nearby NASA Glenn in Cleveland, Ohio.
- Poster [1 MB file] based on rides at the Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. The associated Student Worksheet and its Answer Key [136 KB file] are available.
- Poster [184 KB file] based on rides at the Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom park in Aurora, Ohio. The associated Student Worksheet and Answer Key [164 KB file] are available.
- Generalized version [1 MB file] of the Cedar Point poster which doesn't name Cedar Point in the title and its Answer Key (same file as the Cedar Point answer key) [136 KB file].
NASA Drop Tower Comparison Poster 
This poster [144 KB file] compares the height of the microgravity drop towers at NASA Glenn Research Center with the heights of popular rides at the Cedar Point amusement park.
- Take a look at the 2.2 Second Drop Tower in which experiments fall 24 meters. The drop tower, which provides 2.2 seconds of microgravity, is one of the busiest microgravity facilities in the world.
- Take a look at the Zero-Gravity Research Facility in which experiments fall 132 meters for 5 seconds of microgravity. This is NASA's premier facility for conducting ground based microgravity research and is the largest facility of its kind within the United States. It has been operational since 1966.
NASA Roller Coaster in the Sky Poster 
This poster compares roller coasters with NASA's reduced-gravity research aircraft. This aircraft flies successive parabolic maneuvers to give 15 seconds of lunar-gravity, Martian-gravity, or microgravity conditions to researchers on-board. These reduced-gravity intervals are interspersed with pull-outs at about 2-g's.
- High-resolution poster [1.6 MB file in JPEG format]
- Low-resolution poster [344 KB file in JPEG format]
- More information is available about NASA's reduced-gravity research aircraft.
Anyone can experience similar feelings of alternating light-weight and heavy-weight on many roller coaster hills. The design of the roller coaster determines the feelings experienced by the riders with the hill shape and the train's speed as important variables.
Educator guide available
A NASA educators guide for amusement park physics has been prepared for grades
7-9. A file in Acrobat format (PDF) of the Amusement Park Physics with a NASA Twist is available for download.
The file size is about 1.9 MB so it may take a little time to download.
If you need a little bit more information about it before downloading the file, here are some sections of the guide (in small files):
- Title Page [24 KB]
- Table of Contents [24 KB]
- Introduction [52 KB]
- Correlation with national standards [44 KB]
The guide contains these major sections:
- Introduction
- Correlation to National Education Standards
- Background
- Basic Skills
- Classroom Activities
- NASA Connection
- Ride Work Book (including worksheets for non-attending students)
Sample worksheet and a sample worksheet for non-attending students. - Answer Keys
- Tests (including pre-test and post-test)
- Forms and Extra Material
- Resource List
Links to amusement parks near Cleveland, Ohio
Many other amusement parks also sponsor formal Physics Days so it is worthwhile to check with a local park. It is also possible for a school or individual educator to plan a physics day at a local park using available guides and books on the subject.
- Cedar Point - Their Physics Day information page. (These links will take you to pages which are not NASA web pages.)
- Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom park - Their Physics/Math Day is described on this page. (These links will take you to pages which are not NASA web pages.)
by NASA nor the U. S. government. ---