Football physics lessons popular — and effective.

In the glow of the Friday night lights at Lake Mary High School, there’s plenty of running, tackling and throwing.

There’s also something more you don’t usually find at a high school football game: a weekly physics lesson.

“It started out with three of us physics teachers sitting up there in the press box saying, ‘Dude, do you guys realize there’s all this physics going on?’ ” said Luther Davis, who teaches physics and astronomy at Lake Mary High and also works as the football announcer. “We have 3,000, sometimes 5,000 people in the stands. Wouldn’t it be great to take advantage of this?” They found a way to do just that. At the end of every first quarter, Davis and teachers Steven DeSanto and Gregory Skeates talk about vector analysis — how the quarterback throws not to where his receiver is, but to where his receiver will be.

Or the acceleration of a running back.

This week they planned a chat under the Friday night lights that is actually about the lights — the physics of floodlights and how the mercury vapor creates a bright white illumination. Nerdy? A little. Also wildly popular? You bet. Later in the game, between plays, Davis asks the crowd a trivia question based on the roughly minute-long talk. The first three people to the press box with the answer get a free treat from the concession stand.

“We have people running to the press box,” Davis said.

“Football Physics” is important as much more than a novelty, though.

Intersections like this, where student life meets learning, are a key to success in Seminole County and elsewhere when it comes to teaching science.

Florida learned this week that its fourth- and eighth-grade students scored better on a national science test known as the “nation’s report card.”

The news was particularly welcome because five years ago, the last time Florida received results in science from the National Assessment of Education Progress or NAEP, the state’s eighth-graders bombed.

Paul Cottle, a physics professor at Florida State University and a champion of improved K-12 science education, said the new results are promising.

“This is one step on the journey,” he said.

Fourth-graders in Florida outperformed the national average and eighth-graders boosted the number of kids who scored above the proficient level by eight percentage points from the earlier test.

In Seminole County, where Davis mixes physics with football play calling, about two-thirds of students take a physics course. At least one high school in Seminole, Hagerty High in Oviedo, requires physics for graduation.

Statewide, fewer than a quarter of all students take physics, Cottle