Building a roller coaster, running laps on a football field or dropping a bowling ball off of a set of bleachers may seem like fun weekend activities, but for the physics students under rookie teacher Ryan McAdam, all of these are experiments and labs that help students to understand the world around them. 

This school year, rookie teacher Ryan McAdams has helped to grow the physics program in the school by helping to make learning physics fun, leading him to earn Rookie Teacher of the Year for the Plain Local School District. 

“I just try to make all students interested and curious about how the world works and I try my best to make that learning hands on,” McAdams said. 

This push for more hands-on learning can be seen through the various labs, experiments and demonstrations that the physics students participate in during class. 

“I’ve had a cinder block smashed on my chest by Mr. Ferrell while I was laying on a bed of nails, I dropped bowling balls off of the football stadium and used…a rolling cart to show why we should wear our seatbelts,” McAdams said. 

All of these labs and experiments, while being entertaining, help students to see examples of how force, gravity, inertia and other laws of physics work in our everyday lives. 

“I’ve really tried my best to build the program and to…increase interest and increase the numbers for future years,” McAdams said. 

McAdams has successfully completed both of these goals, as by increasing interest for the physics program by doing all of these experiments and labs, he has also helped to more than double to number of students in all of his classes, which has been needed as the program has been seeing dwindling numbers in recent years. 

“I have loved every second of my first year teaching and I really love Plain Local School,” said McAdams.