University of Kentucky College of Education
The Kentucky Speedway’s eight essay contest winners being interviewed live by Claire B. Lang
on the Sirius XM NASCAR channel.
STEM EDUCATION
From the track to STEM
Fisher brings lessons from NASCAR into the classroom
Dr. Molly Fisher is a college professor with a passion for
NASCAR racing. Her interests converge in classrooms when
she delivers NASCAR-inspired lessons in science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (collectively known as STEM).
For those who think of NASCAR as a “good ol’ boys’” sport
where men drive in circles around a track, STEM lessons
based on racing may seem a stretch. Others may be especially
perplexed by a female with a Ph.D. spending her weekends
unabashedly cheering for her favorite NASCAR drivers. But
things are not as incongruous as they may seem.
“The teams (including the driver) are constantly
calculating, building, programming, and engineering in
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order to find the safest and fastest race car that will meet the
required NASCAR specifications,” Fisher said. “The drivers
are consistently the face of the NASCAR sport, but the rest
of those teams are made up of engineers and scientists, many
with graduate degrees in those fields. The team members
behind the drivers deserve just as much credit as the drivers.
My goal is to emphasize these ideas to children at an earlier
age in efforts to get them interested and engaged in the
STEM concepts embedded in this sport.”
Fisher grew up in North Carolina where she and her
father watched races on Sunday, and would sometimes stop
by NASCAR drivers’ local garages to say hello (a common
practice at the time).
When Fisher was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina
at Charlotte, Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, a physicist who has written a
book on the science that makes cars win, approached her advisor (Dr.
David Royster, who is now also on faculty at
UK), about developing an education component
related to the sport. Soon, she and Royster were
delivering NASCAR-themed workshops for
teachers in Charlotte, NC, and have done a few
in Kentucky.
At UK, Fisher recently connected with UK
graduate student Kyle Curry, a former high
school physics teacher. He got her involved in
the Kentucky Speedway’s Racing to Excellence
school program. She has worked to raise
awareness of the program and helped judge this
year’s STEM essay contest. The eight students
selected as winners in the competition had
the opportunity to gain hands-on experience
as honorary pit crew members during the
Kentucky Speedway’s NASCAR Camping World
Truck Series race. Fisher attended the event
with the high school students, where they spent
the entire race day in the pits and garages with
their designated teams.
Earlier this summer, Fisher was called upon
by the Kentucky Speedway to conduct a camp
session with driver Ben Rhodes, a NASCAR
Camping World Truck Series driver, at Ludlow
Middle School in Kenton County. There, they
talked about safety, such as the Steal and Foam
Energy Reduction (SAFER) barriers around
the walls of tracks and head and neck support
(HANS devices) attached to drivers’ helmets.
“The middle school students even got to
build SAFER walls and crash model cars into
them, measuring which walls absorbed the
force of the car the best,” Fisher said. “What the
students didn’t know at first was that part of the
materials they were working with were actual
pieces of a SAFER barrier that the Kentucky
Speedway donated to my materials collection prior to the camp session.”
During the time Fisher has spent breaking barriers as a woman in
STEM, females have also been making inroads with careers in NASCAR.
“I’d like to see an increase of women in this field and this is being helped
by more women drivers, like Danica Patrick and Jennifer Jo Cobb, being
introduced in the sport,” Fisher said. “During my time in the garage and
pit areas at the speedway this summer, I had the opportunity to speak with
several female engineers and race team directors that were involved in the
building and engineering of the cars. As a female in STEM and a NASCAR
fan, this is a promising step for women in the field, but I would like to see
continuous increases of female involvement in the sport.”
Her next race-related involvement may originate from the UK campus.
During the session at the middle school in Kenton County, Rhodes
interviewed Fisher live for his Facebook followers. Kentucky Racing
Group took notice. The group is comprised of student teams that build and
race UK’s formula and solar cars. The students reached out to Fisher, and
she hopes to collaborate with them on projects.
“I’d like to see an
increase of women in
this field and this is
being helped by more
women drivers...”
—Dr. Molly Fisher
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