Hello class, now that we have finished the first half of season four there will only be one more installment of The Walking Dead massive open online course, Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMC’s The Walking Dead. Once again, we took a look at this week’s course material and graded it on how well the readings and guest instructors presented each topic. This week we studied physics in relation to zombies, because realistically, could a crossbow arrow actually go through the head of a zombie or would it just get stuck?
Weekly Readings: A
This week’s readings glossed over the topics using Wikipedia pages, which we loved. Since the material was based in physics we were happy to gain a general understanding of force, momentum and exactly how much energy it would take to pierce a zombie skull.
Guest Instructors: B+
Actress Sonequa Martin-Green, who plays Sasha on the show, discussed weapon choice in a post-apocalyptic world with Professor Michael Dennin. The consensus was that a katana wins; not only in the coolness factor, but also due to its nature of being incredibly effective.
Visual Materials – Extras: B+
While there are normally extra photos for students, this week instead offered an interview with the professors about weapon choice. Also, the course provided students with an online computer zombie physics game. The game has different scenarios where the player has to figure out hot to kill the zombies using the properties of physics while avoiding killing any of the humans in the game.
Visual Materials – Videos: A
The clips from the show that were used to illustrate different ways of killing zombies and the role that physics plays in those scenes brought us back to some of the best parts in the series. Our favorite was when Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) took out a walker from a far distance with nothing but a throwing knife.
Quiz : B-
Surprisingly enough even though we never took physics in high school we managed to pull a B- on the quiz. This almost makes us wish we had taken more science classes in school…almost.
Overall we gave this week’s materials a B+ in undead instruction. We still can’t believe we did so well on the final quiz, but think it may have something to do with the fact that the examples were done with zombies, and are grateful for the useful knowledge on the best ways to defend yourself in a post-apocalyptic zombie takeover.
Watch unlimited classic and modern horror on American Horror via FilmOn:
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