Six Flags Marine World

Thousands of elementary, middle school, and high school students and teachers from Northern California and surrounding areas attended the end-of-school-year events.

Visitors could experience the excitement of the park’s rides and attractions alongside a variety of opportunities in science and math education.

Six Flags offered something for everyoneÕs taste. Rides like Medusa, Kong, and Roar were thrilling, and featured shows like the one at Dolphin Harbor gave students a chance for a close-up wildlife experience. Other attractions included Tiger Island, Elephant Encounter, and the rush of the Ski Xtreme stunt show.

PASCO staffed several stations across the park, each offering an interactive, hands-on science experience. Handouts for each experiment were made available to teachers and students. Many students conducted real-time experiments at PASCO stations, collecting data and recording experiment results to take back to their classrooms for further analysis.

Extreme physics was the name of the game as students rode through the twists and turns of rides like Cobra, Jambo, The Ark, and Monkey Business. Students used PASCO’s Xplorer® datalogger with our new 3-axis Acceleration Sensor to record measurements that described their wild ride. The data was then immediately and easily downloaded to a computer for further analysis using PASCO’s DataStudio® software. See the Jambo graph.

Medusa is the tallest, fastest, longest and most technologically advanced roller coaster in Northern California, and the first floorless coaster on the West Coast. Riders love the unique open-air seat design that provides an unrivaled feel of flying, as they soar over Medusa's 150-foot first drop at 65 mph. Experience the stomach-lurching, heart-pounding excitement of this incredible coaster!

The Ark is a traditional Galleon and African-themed canoe ship. As it swings back and forth, The Ark reaches speeds up to 30 mph and arcs up to 75 degrees. Students were able to measure their acceleration during the ride using Xplorer and the Acceleration Sensor. Afterwards, students could view the acceleration graph and calculate the ride’s velocity.

Cobra, the double-figure-eight coaster, provided students the opportunity to see the variation of acceleration during their ride. Viewing the graph in DataStudio, students correlated the ride’s layout with the recorded data. See the Cobra graph.

PASCO’s new Roller Coaster product combines the fun of a roller coaster with the quantitative study of motion, forces, and energy. The system allows students to perform a wide variety of kinematics and dynamics experiments. PASCO’s roller coaster was on display for students to experiment with next to its real-life cousins Kong and Medusa.