IB Sports & Exercise have been working on a two-part lab trying to figure out the relationship between stride length and the length of the bones in their legs. 

They began on paper inside the classroom, prepping for the exciting part that took place outside. They measured various bones in their body, ranging from their thumb to their femur, with the purpose of figuring out which bone had the strongest relationship to their height.

IB Sports teacher Mr. Ryan Pace recounted how his fifth period class worked toward their conclusion.  That class came to the humorous dsiscover that their thumb lengths were the best predictor of a person’s height, than any of the other bones they measured.

“Our class ironically came up with the best correlation we had was, thumb length but that’s because of the small sample size…thumb length wasn’t even supposed to correlate,” Pace said while chuckling. 

This past Thursday, the class went outside to the tennis courts to test whether their height or foot length affected their stride more. Each student walked 30 meters, at their normal pace, and measured how many steps they took. Pace walked along with them. After spending some time outside, they went back inside to break down their findings. They found, with the occasional outlier, that height had more of an effect on their stride. 

Junior Chloe Thompson stated, “It was a good first lab to get us introduced to all the sport’s science stuff.”

The purpose of all of the labs taking place this year is to prepare students for their IB test later in the year. Pace is confident in his students’ abilities and is hopeful for the rest of the year, with the knowledge that science is, “trial by error.”