In a unique blend of education and adventure, students at Wilkes-Barre Area High School are taking their STEM lessons to new heights. The school’s STEM Academy recently turned a day at the local climbing gym into a hands-on learning experience, bringing concepts from physics and engineering into a tangible environment.
Sophomore Leah Pryor was among the students who tackled the climbing walls, applying classroom knowledge to real-world scenarios. “Doing this and knowing exactly what’s going on, the different mechanisms that are being used, and the different mechanical advantages and stuff like that, I think it’s just really interesting,” she shared.
Under the guidance of Rob Osmanski, who teaches the Engineering II course, students explored principles such as friction and centers of gravity through physical activity. “There’s one thing to solve a calculation. Say, ‘Oh, the frictional force is, you know, 25 newtons,'” Osmanski explained. “But to actually feel that friction helping them stay on the wall, you know, with their grip or their climbing shoes, it’s different. It makes it come to life.”
Joining Osmanski was Sam Elias, a rock climber and instructional coach, who helped translate these lessons into practical applications. The students engaged in activities designed to calculate the centroid of a triangle, a method used to find a climber’s center of gravity. Photos taken during the climb will later be analyzed using software to determine these points.
“They’re going to use some software, put that picture on a coordinate plane, get the three points of the triangulated position that the climber’s in,” Elias explained. “Then they’re going to have to basically write the equations of medians and find the point of intersection, which is going to calculate the center of gravity.”
The STEM Academy, part of the Plains Twp. school, serves around 100 students, providing them with additional exposure to science, technology, engineering, and math. The program is in high demand and plans to expand, according to Keith Eberts, a teacher involved with the academy.
At the climbing gym, students were equipped with harnesses and climbing shoes, scaling the walls as excited conversations filled the air. Sophomore Isabella DeGraffenreid remarked, “It’s been super cool to put some of our ideas really into action, and to see it for ourselves how much mechanical advantage it has in person.”
