Skates in Schools, Athens, GA Workshop, 2003

Hillsman Middle School, Athens, GA, 2003
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Eddy Matzger brought the future of skating into Hilsman Middle School on Monday, March 2, 2003, in Athens, Georgia. While on his carbon-fiber monocoque skates, Eddy taught physics, geometry, geography, and musculature to three inquisitive groups of seventh graders.

At the invitation of Mr. Piazza, Eddy gave his demonstration in the school's Media Center. "It's one thing to learn things in books," Eddy began, but even more instructive and fun to find real world examples of how the laws of physics and mathematics apply to activities you love."

Eddy made his program interactive, asking students to help him recall Newton's laws of gravity, then used students to show such things as how force (a push) applied to an object (a skater) accelerates that mass at a constant speed unless an outside force (friction from braking, wind, or road surface) acts upon it.

Eddy got help to show how for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. Kids also helped prove that acceleration is directly proportional to force and inversely proportional to mass with hands-on examples. Students helped Eddy figure out how long it took him to skate from Athens to Atlanta, a distance of nearly 90 miles, with the equation of distance equals rate times time. They also helped determine which muscles are used as stabilizers and which are primary movers, as well as what posture is correct for avoiding muscle pain.

Eddy had to field some tough questions from some difficult customers, but to the amazement of the team of teachers, Eddy kept the students' rapt attention for forty minutes at a time. Even the skateboarders were impressed!

Friction	Hilsman panthers	Tough questions
Gravity powered	No sore back	Small force
Underpush	Centrifugal force	Geometry in action
Teaching Eddy	Media Center	Falling
Challenge	Frictionless travel	Tricks!

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