![Students at Little Britain Elementary School calculate if they can out run an avalanche.]([{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_1/v1665058066/wsk12nyus/nrtbxfilnsvceiyvgj4o/20220929_123950.jpg","width":256},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_2/v1665058066/wsk12nyus/nrtbxfilnsvceiyvgj4o/20220929_123950.jpg","width":512},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_3/v1665058066/wsk12nyus/nrtbxfilnsvceiyvgj4o/20220929_123950.jpg","width":800},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_4/v1665058066/wsk12nyus/nrtbxfilnsvceiyvgj4o/20220929_123950.jpg","width":1200},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_5/v1665058066/wsk12nyus/nrtbxfilnsvceiyvgj4o/20220929_123950.jpg","width":1600},{"url":"https://resources.finalsite.net/images/f_auto,q_auto,t_image_size_6/v1665058066/wsk12nyus/nrtbxfilnsvceiyvgj4o/20220929_123950.jpg","width":2200}])
Using the internationally-famous author Lauren Tarshis's story "White Death - The true story of the Wellington Avalanche of 1910" the fourth-grade students in Mr. Todd Grodin's class at Little Britain Elementary School learned that avalanches can travel 80 miles per hour.
Using Usain Bolt's speed of 9.68 sec for 100m we decided to see how fast that was moving per second. 330 feet in 9.68 sec = 34 feet per second. However, the 422,400 feet in one hour (80 m.p.h.) divided by the 3,600 seconds (seconds/hour) earns the awe-inspiring avalanche a speed of 117.33 feet per second!
Mr. Grodin's class divided the 117 feet into yards, used a yardstick to measure those 39.1 yards on the blacktop, and then ran the distance to physically quantify how fast an avalanche was in comparison to our running! Can you outrun an avalanche?
Click here to watch the video.