By Caroline Benjamin and Lucy Ward

On a sunny day in March, Upper School math teacher BethAnn Bell provided her Honors PreCalculus class with the amazing opportunity to see the laws of trigonometry firsthand on Collegiate’s Stephen P. Adamson (’92), Jr., Ropes Course. Coco Wayne (’26), one of Bell’s students, was one of the students studying the creation of trigonometric equations with technology such as Desmos. The path of a person swinging on Collegiate’s Ropes Course swing was a perfect example of a cosine graph, which these students were crafting.

Outdoor Collegiate Director Brad Cooke working the giant swing on the Ropes Course. Photo courtesy of Collegiate School.

Over the past few years, Bell has strived to provide her students with the ability to visualize the math they are doing in a real-world scenario, while also having fun. During their block period that morning, Bell’s class was not sitting down for a normal class in P120 but rather walking down to the Ropes Course, situated next to Collegiate’s Business Office on Mooreland Road, to get harnessed in to experience trigonometry in motion. After a briefing on the required safety precautions, the class was split up and given roles such as haul team, ladder crew, and videographer in order to make the process run smoothly and get everyone involved.

Wayne shared her take on the morning adventures later that day. Going into the experiment, the class displayed a range of emotions due to their varying levels of comfort with heights. Wayne detailed that her “love-hate relationship with heights” caused her to feel some anxiety leading up to her turn. However, she said, “Once I was past the initial fall, it was really fun.” During this experience, the class “had some good bonding moments,” Wayne added. Without the collaboration of the students, it would have been impossible for the experiment to be successful. For example, the haul team all pulled the rope at once to lift someone up in the air, while the ladder crew spotted their descent from the swing, and Bell ensured that all harnesses were tightened appropriately. Wayne also noted that she will be glad to have memories of the giant swing documented through the countless vlogs filmed by her and her classmates.