Morgan Jones | Reporter
Over spring break, Ms. Leahy’s AP Statistics students were given the opportunity to help save lives alongside the Washington Township Avon Fire Department.
Initially contacted by the department, Ms. Leahy said that she jumped at the opportunity.
“[They] wanted to know if it was possible for us to look at numbers and analyze them,” Ms. Leahy said. “To tell if firefighters can get a person out of a house by taking them out the back door versus taking them out the window is real and genuine and useful. That’s what a statistician really does.”
Sophomore Lexi Carmack said that the experience was a lot of fun.
“We timed the firefighters [rescuing] people in real time,” Carmack said. “My favorite part was standing inside. You couldn’t see very much because of the smoke machine, but you could hear the firefighters discussing how they were rescuing people.”
Likewise, sophomore Yohannes Leben said that his favorite part of the experience was being inside of the house.
“I got to witness the fire department rescue “dummies” from a smoke-filled house at four different locations,” Leben said. “The smoke was around us, and most of the time you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Rescuing [the dummies] involved breaking through one of the house’s walls.”
Leben said that the optional field-trip was an extra credit opportunity.
“I volunteered because [there] was an extra credit incentive. I [also] wanted to help the community, and I thought through volunteering I’d be carrying out my civic duty,” Leben said. “This data could provide results to change the procedure of future fire rescues.”
Ms. Leahy said that she hopes students will take away valuable experience and knowledge from the service.
“I think math classes in general have a tendency to be kind of artificial. The problems are made up, and they’re fake things you wouldn’t need to know,” Leahy said. “I want [students] to see the connection between real-life mathematics and what [they’re] learning in the classroom.”
Photos submitted by Ms. Leahy
The Avon Echo 