Tulsa World: Students rev up to learn

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Students rev up to learn

Area schoolchildren cover their ears as Team Thunder fires up its drag racer's engine Wednesday during a math and science education program at the Tulsa Raceway Park. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World

By JEFF BILLINGTON World Staff Writer
Published: 9/18/2008 2:10 AM
Last Modified: 9/18/2008 2:35 AM

A quarter-mile drag strip isn't the normal, everyday classroom.

But for Sam Parton and Jerry Porter of Team Thunder, it's the perfect place to grab students' attention and motivate them to hit the books harder and, in the process, teach them to be better people.

Team Thunder, based in Grove, focuses on helping students make good choices and understand how mathematics, science, technology, language arts and other subjects are applied in the real world, Parton said. One of the motivational organization's tools is a Top Fuel dragster that roars down raceways.

On Wednesday, more than 700 students from about 16 Oklahoma schools took part in Team Thunder's outdoor classroom at Tulsa Raceway Park, getting up close and personal with the dragster and having a chance to launch a rocket or a model airplane.

Parton, a teacher and school administrator for 15 years, said: "We answer that age-old question, 'Why do I have to take this stuff? I'll never use it.' We show them how they will use it.

"We push relevancy; relating classroom work to the real world," he said. "As a teacher, I saw the kids learning, but when I would ask why they were learning, they would say, 'Well, we're learning for the test we are going to take.' You should be learning to prepare yourself to exist in the real world.

"That's my motivation for this; I wanted to bring a little tidbit of the real world to the schools, this racing operation, and drive home the importance of education."

Parton and Porter work with students to teach core concepts within the context of drag racing, helping explain various math and science topics, including force, resistance, energy, volume, pressure, percentages and ratios.

Fairland High School senior Teona Jackson said Wednesday's demonstration taught her that she can have fun while learning and doing her schoolwork.

"They can make it really interesting instead of it being boring all the time, especially with the dragster," she said. "There's a lot of hands-on work with what we've seen. I think I can apply a lot of this when I do my own work."

For the past eight years, Team Thunder, which is sponsored by various private companies, has visited schools in nine states, performing hundreds of programs using its race car, Parton said.

Wednesday's event was sponsored in part by Tulsa New Holland, Grove Integris Hospital, Big Bear Productions and Tulsa Raceway Park.

Jeff Billington 581-8369
jeff.billington@tulsaworld.com

By the numbers

8 Number of years Team Thunder has been putting on demonstrations

16 Approximate number of schools with students at Wednesday’s demonstration

300 mph Near top speed of Team Thunder’s dragster

5,000 Horsepower of the dragster’s engine

By JEFF BILLINGTON World Staff Writer

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jestergrl, ok (9/18/2008 8:45:58 AM)

From looking at the picture the kids were not provided with earplugs. Glad they got to get out and learn outside of the classroom.

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