Students send their projects soaring in STEM Trig


Lizz McCoy

Ms. Rohlwing pulls the trigger to send a group’s rocket into the air

Lizz McCoy, Staff Reporter

Ms. Rohlwing’s STEM Trig class launched their final product in their rocket races last Thursday behind the school and launched the water filled bottles into the atmosphere.

Each group had a rocket with a name, such as Rocky or Space X, and high hopes of a successful launch.

Each rocket was made out of household objects such as 2 liter bottles, duct tape, and cardboard, but the students were allowed to add on different materials of their own.

The rockets during this launch was the second round of refined projects to be launched, and the first round was their testing round.

The students were to fix and improve their final rockets based on the data they collected from the first launch on Friday, September 20th.

There wasn’t one rocket that didn’t impress, and every rocket made it off the ground that day.

Toward the end, several students expressed their feelings about how the class has helped them understand mathematics in an easier learning environment.  

One student, senior Hannah Sparrow spoke out about the class, “I enjoy that the class is not just traditional paper & pencil math. It’s more hands-on”.

Senior Lillian Ridigner also added, “Mrs. Rohlwing is a really good teacher and it’s a great class to take if you need math credit but don’t want a typical ‘sit down, do worksheets, and learn targets class”

Many teachers and students at West recommend this class. “ When students use this type of learning it makes a lot of concepts make more sense.  Students gain a lot of engineering experience which teaches them to think like an engineer. It’s so valuable to learn how to make things better, share ideas, work with a team, and reflect on experiences,” Ms. Rohlwing said.

But Ms. Rohlwing added, “It’s definitely meant more for upperclassmen because you have to have past experiences in other math classes to understand how everything works and how to apply math skills they already know.”

All in all, this class is known to have a lot of fun and interesting experiences while learning helpful math skills.