A sixth-grade teacher brought real world applications to the classroom on Wednesday in the form of a nationally competing drag racing car.
Brian Conrey teaches at Mill Creek Elementary in Bristol Township as a day job, but during his off time, he drag races at a pretty high level. Always looking for a way to make math and science more relatable, Conrey brought his car to school this week to relate the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math to the real world.
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“We’re always looking for ways to incorporate the real world (into the classroom),” Conrey explained.
Given the timeliness of his drag racing, it seemed like a good time to bring outside lessons into school. Specifically, Conrey wanted to show students how math and science can be applied to drag racing.
“I know that as a student, it was learning opportunities like this that made learning special,” Conrey said.
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Throughout the morning, every student in the school, from kindergarten through sixth grade had the opportunity to watch the demonstration and learn how things like fractions, speed and engineering all come together for drag racing. Conrey described the experience and seeing kids marvel at the lesson as a really special experience.
This past weekend, Conrey competed nationally at the 48th Summer Nationals at the Englishtown Raceway Park in New Jersey. In addition to providing an academic lesson, times like those on Wednesday go a long way in making kids realize that teachers aren’t robots that live in the school, they all have individual and unique lives.
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In Englishtown, Conrey made it to the semi-finals.
Throughout the summer, Conrey will race a little more than every other weekend all up and down the east coast.
