Cresting a 135-foot hill on The Beast at Paramount's Kings Island on Wednesday, Kim Williams learned that one person's trigonometry is another person's terror.
Kim, a junior at Lakota East High School, was among thousands of students to use the park as a classroom during the 10th annual Math and Science Days.
More than 15,000 students from 173 schools in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia observed speeds and angles of roller coasters and other rides. Last Friday, the park played host to 12,000 students.
"It helps them learn that math and science are alive and well in the real world," said Susan MacIntyre, a teacher at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, who brought 39 juniors and seniors from her Advanced Placement calculus class.
While some showed off roller coaster models built with ice cream sticks or used stopwatches to track velocity, other students steeled themselves to experience a major roller coaster for the first time. Twitching in her chair on the way to the top of a 135-foot hill, Kim alternated between nervous laughter and prayers for mercy. But her class lessons could not have been too far out of mind as the coaster paused before plummeting at speeds near 60 mph.
"Instantaneous acceleration," she screamed.
