Special project aims to highlight literacy

    HODGDON — The Mill Pond School in Hodgdon is highlighting its students’ achievements in literacy by publishing their work. This is one student’s “Spotlight on Literacy.” Continuing with the practice of interdisciplinary units, seventh grade students in Stephanie Harris’s language arts and Maryann Sylvain’s science class were asked to choose a career of interest and briefly explain how it relates to physics or chemistry. They used the Internet to research the topic. The students’ writing was assessed along with how well they explained the relationship.
    Below, seventh grader Nicholas Lunn described how a baseball player uses physics when playing the game.


The career I have chosen to relate to physics is a professional baseball player. When pitchers move their legs and hips first (slow moving and massive), that momentum is transmitted up the body through the torso and into the arms and fingers as they pitch the ball. The force at which the baseball hits the bat depends on the mass of the ball and how fast the speed of the ball changes. Batters want to hit the ball on the node of the bat, so there is little vibration and maximum energy transmitted to the ball, causing it to travel farther. A node is a point, line, or region in a standing wave at which where there is little or no vibration. When the ball hits the bat, the bat applies force on the ball that equals that of the ball on the bat. When the ball is in the air, gravity must pull it down. As you can see, physics can relate to a professional baseball player very easily.