Fifth Period
First Time Here?
Go to the first strip and
see how it all started!
Join students Sophie, Tomás, Emma, and Marcus during Fifth Period! This STEM comic strip chronicles the exciting and often hilarious adventures of a close-knit group of four friends as they learn about science, technology, engineering, and math from their kooky, inspiring, off-the-wall science teacher, Mr. Kepler. When they're not in class, these kids love to explore the vast world of STEM on their own, launching weather balloons, programming computer games, and cataloging insects, sometimes with unpredictable and highly entertaining results!
Check back on the first and third Friday of every month for a new Fifth Period strip!
Marcus and Emma Go Ballistic
Marcus is pretty observant about trajectories—probably because of all his dodgeball experience! He knows that kids who can’t throw the ball very hard have to aim high to reach a target that’s far away, in order to account for the pull of gravity. Tomás’ pitching-machine-launched snowball had a high velocity, so he could aim much lower and still reach Marcus, even though he was just as far away as Emma when she launched her catapult toward Marcus.
Try it yourself!
With snowballs or a baseball and a friend, find out how high (or at what angle) you have to throw it to reach the greatest distance! Whether you realize it or not, you’re learning about ballistic trajectories and parabolas (an arced path)—the stuff home runs (and snowball fights) are made of!