Polson High School students use primitive bows to study physics
OCT 28, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024784
Missoulian : Jon Petersen, a physics teacher at Polson High School in Missoula, Montana, has come up with a local way to teach a universal concept. To get his students to understand elastic potential energy, he teamed up with Francis Cahoon, a member of Montana’s Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Cahoon made two bows of the same traditional design from different woods: hickory and vine maple. Petersen directed his students to measure the bending moduli of the bows by hanging weights of various sizes from the bows’ strings. Shooting arrows from the bows will come later—presumably as a reward.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
