In order to better engage with students, Statistics teacher Stephen Rotan has implemented a project involving constructing and throwing paper airplanes. Testing two separate airplane designs against each other, students paired off and made two different hypotheses. 

“The goal of the project is to use math to determine if the student’s assumption about their airplanes is correct,” Rotan said. “Sometimes we have a feeling, but we need to make sure the numbers back up our intuition.”

Each student was tasked with creating one unique airplane, and had to hypothesize if it would beat their partners’. 

“The first test compared the flying ability of the planes, seeing which would go further,” senior Natalie Wilson said. “The second compared the throwing abilities of each student in the pair, using one plane only.”

Senior Mia Wright sees the value in hands-on experimental learning.

“I think this project was helpful in teaching me the statistical equations, since we had to figure out a lot of it on our own,” Wright said. “It really made me work through each step of a hypothesis test.”

It always proves to be a challenge to motivate students to complete their work at the end of the year, but Wilson believes that this assignment stood up to the test. 

“I really enjoyed the project,” Wilson said. “I think it was a little challenging but overall fun! I got some good laughs while throwing a paper airplane terribly, so overall, I enjoyed it.”