Falling at a fast speed with the piercing science class’ air conditioner wind hitting her skin, Barbie can’t close her eyes. Descending for what may feel like forever, the ride suddenly snaps to a stop. The tension, the potential energy, all release at once, and Barbie goes flying back up. Barbie just went bungee jumping.

On Oct. 15, physics teacher John Mitchell has his class prepare for the ‘Barbie bungee jump’ activity. Students tied rubber bands together to be used as a bungee cord which were then tied to a Barbie doll to recreate and simulate the thrilling experience of bungee jumping.

“We basically had to construct, like, a bungee jump cord out of rubber bands or elastics,” senior Anushka Sen said. “We had to test it and drop it from the ceiling and see how far it dropped, and I just really like how much excitement goes into them – like how much group work and how much it can really find people similar-minded to you.”

This physics activity includes working in groups while also needing complex thinking skills. According to these students, physics is more than just a class — its a place where they can be creative with their findings, work hard to find complex solutions and to participate in fun activities like this one while still learning about physics in general.

“I took physics because in the future I want to study engineering, and I already took Physics I, so this felt like a good next step to take physics again,” senior Emily Zhang said. “And I wanted to challenge myself.”

Sen had other reasons for putting the class on her schedule.

“I love physics, and I took it because I want to go into engineering, and I love math,” Sen said. “I would recommend it to anyone who is into that, that analytical thinking and critical thinking, problem-solving, things like that.”

These physics students said that they love the subject, and they encourage their friends and other students to take the class.

“There’s a lot of cool labs, and we do a lot of really fun labs like the Barbie bungee jump,” Zhang said. “We learn a lot about circuits, momentum and a lot of different concepts, and then learned how to apply them. It definitely builds the foundation for engineering.”

Senior Rishith Tangudu said the variety of labs make students look forward to going to physics class instead of dreading it.

“If you go to other classes, most of them usually (are done) on, like, worksheets where you have to read books or something like that,” Tangudu said. “But in physics, you get to do hands-on activities where you actually get to work with items to learn about information, rather than just reading off of  something and learning things.”

This article has received edits from Emily Logan, Yousuf Ali and Kate Duncan.