Thunder Ridge class project takes over entire school

Rolling a marble sounds pretty easy, right? How about if you tried to roll it all the way from the third story to the first floor of a building?

“We had to get a marble from the very top floor in a classroom, all the way in the back, into the office on the first floor and on to Mr. McLaren’s desk, the principal,” said Jake Bryan, a 10th grader at Thunder Ridge High School.

Over 300 yards of cardboard, paper, duct tape and other materials consumed the hallways and staircases at Thunder Ridge High School in Bonneville County.

“During class, we’ve been learning about all the acceleration on curves and slopes and the mathematics that go behind that,” said Darren Guthrie, the Titan Think Tank teacher.

The Titan Think Tank is a collaborative problem-solving group that uses four core classes; math, science, English and history.

Sixty-five students involved in the Titan Think Tank came to school Friday morning and immediately got started on the marble drop.

“Everyone went to their stations and started building, getting all of their pieces together,” Bryan said.

The kids were divided into four groups: those who specialized in the east and west sections, those who worked on the north and south parts, those who got the marble through the doorways and those who got it around corners.

“They have to keep the marble at a certain velocity and keep it within 4Gs (G-forces), so if somebody was riding on this marble they wouldn’t die,” Guthrie said.

This project has helped the Titan Think Tank grasp some of these lessons better.

“It’s definitely made it a little bit easier, I’ve definitely struggled in math, but this has helped me understand how it works,” said 10th grader Whitney Apel.

Having to go up and down those three stories over and over is no easy feat, either, but with teamwork, the students were able to roll into success.

“Everyone can work together in harmony,” Bryan said. “With great leadership, great teachers, good skills, anything is possible.”