Throwing Up

This year, Buffalo, New York, has had more than 100 inches of snow this winter. We imagine that the height of the tunnel to people's homes is getting pretty high. It's hard to shovel new snow when you have to get your shovel-full over those previous snow banks. You have to throw the snow practically straight up to get the snow well into the surrounding snowbanks. In this activity students experiment with the parabolic path of that shovel full of snow. They estimate the toss and practice graphing parabolas. Then they manipulate the initial formula to refine an optimum snow throw flight path. Finally they decide how far someone will have to Throw Up.

For Adventurer members we have Word docs and solutions.