Fun school project to join Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum

COLUMBUS - What began in 1993 as a project to keep middle school students from being bored during the last week before summer vacation is about to become a part of Ripley&#39;s Believe It Or Not museum. <br> <br> Double Churches Middle School math teacher Amy Willis, who is retiring after 30 years in the Muscogee County School District, came up with the idea having students bring in yarn and roll it down the school halls into a big, fuzzy ball. <br> <br> By 1996, the ball was still relatively small at 27 pounds, but this year it swelled into one that is 700 pounds and 48 inches in diameter. <br> <br> It&#39;s not known if it&#39;s the largest such collection of yarn in the world. That&#39;s because the only formal record listed in the Guinness Book of Records is for a ball of string, not yarn or twine. <br> <br> But Ripley&#39;s is impressed nonetheless. That&#39;s why they are picking it up next week to deliver to one of its many stateside museums. <br> <br> ``I hope they take it to Orlando, or Gatlinburg, or New Orleans,&#39;&#39; said Willis, who was the county&#39;s teacher of the Year in 1995. <br> <br> ``It would be nice if it was at one of their museums that is close enough for us to see the ball from time to time,&#39;&#39; she said. <br> <br> Seventh and eighth-graders spent their final week rolling the ball up and down the halls. Willis&#39; students have been doing it since 1993, the first eight years when she was at Arnold Middle School. <br> <br> ``It&#39;s hard for me to believe that that first group of mine has already graduated from college,&#39;&#39; she said. <br> <br> The project, in which students are encouraged to bring in balls of yarn from home during the school year, serves two purposes, said Willis. <br> <br> She said she learned long ago that middle school students become restless during the last week of school. So what would be better than to have a fun project, one that can also serve as a lesson in mathematics? <br> <br> The students chart the growth of the ball in diameter, weight and volume, and have done so since the start of the project. <br> <br> In 1998, the ball weighed 200 pounds with a circumference of 35 inches. It&#39;s been growing ever since. <br> <br> Willis is encouraging all of her former students who had anything to do with making the ball of yarn to stop by the school Tuesday, the day Ripley&#39;s people arrive to carry off the ball. <br> <br> That will be the last time to say good-bye to the ball, and to the teacher who spun the idea in the first place.