It is getting spooky at Centralia High School

By: Josh Bowne, contributing writer

Left to Right: Josh Dishman, Jaylyn Woods, Rohan Holiman, Tonya Schmidt, Harry White, Elijah Hill, Susanna Nix.

Every year at Halloween Mrs. Tonya Schmidt, Centralia High School(CHS) physics and Advanced Chemistry teacher hosts a Halloween game night for her students.

It is a huge scavenger hunt across the town of Centralia. The game takes around one to two hours to solve seven clues.

“I wanted to challenge students to real world science problems and riddles as well as extra practice from the content taught in class but in a more informal format. Students need to be given the opportunity to be silly and have fun. Halloween is the perfect time to be science silly. I enjoy seeing the students have fun....and the opportunity to scare them a little,” stated Shmidt. 

Schmidt divided her two classes into five teams. All teams have a few students from physics and Advanced Chemistry. The teams needed each other to figure out the problems because physics learns different things in class than Advanced Chemistry and vice versa. Each team must dress up with a team costume. The teams this year were: Pacman, the Smurfs, GhostBusters, the Care Bears and hunters. 

Once the event starts, teams must answer riddles about the history of Centralia to get to the location of the next clue. The clues are real world problems of physics and Advanced Chemistry. One of the problems students had to solve was a vector equation. In this equation they had to find the location of their clue in the sand trap at the CHS track. A vector equation includes direction angles. 

Teams have to be able to work together to figure out the problems. Schmidt made this year's game a little harder so teams had to really work well together and solve their problems as fast as possible. Tess Stephens, a senior in Advanced Chemistry, mentioned how her team worked together, “There were moments when we were all flaking out… usually on Mike… but besides that we got along well.”  Some teams worked quicker than others but some worked better than others. The teams had to trust each other on what they had learned in their separate classes. Mattie Robinson a senior in Advanced Chemistry states, “We did work well together because we each brought something different to the table.” 

Everyone comes out with great memories. Noah Davis, a junior in Advanced Chemistry stated, “The most memorable part of the game for me was when Michael Marcellus and someone I couldn’t tell who they were, led Lilly Underwood and I to a clue that didn’t exist. It was a little frustrating, but I thought it was really funny.” 
All the students recommended this game. Michael Marcellus, a senior in physics said, “The game is not only a competition, but also a test of knowledge.” Mrs. Schmidt will be hosting another game night next year around halloween.