Math in Sports or Sports in Math?

As an educator who is passionate about Math and Physical Education, I am always looking for ways to incorporate athletics into my lessons. I realize that this may not appeal to all the students in the class, so I am sure to use examples from other areas of interest as well. (Music, Movies, Art, Shopping, Food etc.)

One way to incorporate athletics into a lesson is by using baseball statistics.  By looking at a teams at-bats vs hits the students could figure out the average.  This could be expanded by having the students change the average into a percentage as well as asking the students to order the team from best hitter to worst.  The students could also graph the results.  The funny thing is that many children often compare Major League athletes based on these stats and do not even realize where they come from.  

 Below is a link to an example from mathgoodies.com of a Webquest based upon baseball stats.

http://www.mathgoodies.com/Webquests/sports/

 Billiards is another great sport to use in the Math classroom. For anyone that has played billiards, you would know that it is a game of angles. Every shot that is made precisely calculated based on degrees.  It is a great way to reinforce angles, reflection, triangles, similar triangles and congruency. Here is a link that shows how this could be done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gLNUV8wgOE

Another great way to incorporate athletics and literacy in the math classroom is with hockey statistics. Daily newspapers contain hockey statistics that could be used in a unit like integers (plus/minus) or for averages (average time on ice).  This could even be turned into a class activity where the students would have to keep track of a player throughout a season adding points when goals are scored when that player is on the ice and taking away points when they are scored on.  Golf is another sport example that deals with integers (using par) that could be included as an example/assignment as well.  In hockey the goalie could also be the main focus of a lesson by discussing the percentages of saves.

Basketball and golf would be fantastic sports to show real life examples of parabolas. This would help students realize that parabolas do in fact have real life applications.

Just as sports can be incorporated into math class, math can be included in physical education.  I think it is important to keeps “minds on” in all courses.  One of the ways that I have included math in my PE class in the past is to change the point system for sports.  I always keep a scoreboard out for every sport (not because I care who wins, but because the team that is on rest must keep score).  I forgo the traditional way of keeping score and change the value of a goal.  For example, in basketball each team starts with 10 points, three points are added for a basket scored, one point is taken away for every airball, and 5 points taken away for every foul.  I do this in most of the sports we play.  Not only does it help with math but it also forces the students that are on rest to stay involved in the game.