You don’t have to be a college hoops fanatic to get swept up in March Madness. Just as athletes “learn from the game,” the annual NCAA competition offers students a timely, engaging way to hone their STEM knowledge and skills.

Check out this eGFI collection of bracket-busting resources, including BracketOdds, the University of Illinois computer science STEM learning laboratory! Or display these graphically stunning posters illustrating how players calculate successful shots and other basketball forces, energy, and math concepts from Chevron’s STEM Zone‘s Game On Basketball.

VIDEO: PBS Basketball Science. Lay-up angles, curvy bounce passes, delightful dribbling and more! The Curious Crew learns how simple scientific principals improve the game of basketball. STEM Challenge: Designing a mini-free throw machine.

Just for fun: March Madness 2017 viral video from UNC-Charlotte statistics class. Or learn how to improve your odds of picking the winning teams in the annual NCAA basketball tournament from University of Michigan aerospace engineering professors:

Activities from eGFI

• Target Practice [Grades 1-6]
• Catapult Marshmallow Launch [Grades 4-8]
• Free-Shot Physics [Grade 6-8] Contains extra-credit math problem calculating free-throw averages.
• Robot Basketball [grades 5-12]
• Design a Sneaker [Grades 5-7]
• Flying T-shirt Challenge [Grades 9-12]

Feature articles from eGFI

• Digits & Dunks [feature on Peoria, Ill. students who learn math by shooting baskets]
• Engineer Hoopsters [feature on engineering students on varsity teams]
• Engineers Got Game! [feature on Rose-Hulman’s all-engineering major women’s basketball team & other hoop stars who studied engineering]
• NCAA Big Dance Basics [2013 feature] and The Big Dance [2011 feature]
• The Secret to Swish [eGFI Students’ blog feature on basketball math and physics]
• Slam-Dunk Engineer [profile of varsity player Reed Doucette, UCLA engineering grad & Rhodes scholar]

eGFI Teachers’ Newsletters

• Full Court STEM [March 2017]
• Full Court Engineering [March 2013]
• Hoops & Heaps of Learning [March 2011]

Other Resources

How engineers play basketball: watch until end for surprise ending:

Basketball Lesson Links for the STEM Classroom. This Siemens STEM Academy blog post has links to a dozen online activities and features, from basketball physics to bracket science to eGFI’s Big Dance Basics.

Basketball on Earth vs. Moon. Interactive infographic details the different gravitational forces and how that affects a jump shot.

Basketball STEM Project. Quick takes on topics from the engineering of the ball (dimpled surface improves grip) to the math of free-throw averages.

Build a Basketball Hoop. South Carolina teacher’s engineering design activity to build a basketball hoop for plastic spoon “shooters.”

Circumference of a Changing Basketball & 5 Other Math Activities. NCAA Basketball has assembled six standards-based hands-on middle school math activities. [Grades 6-8]

Can Data Analytics Help You Fill Out Your March Madness Bracket? 2017 interview with University of Illinois computer scientist Sheldon Jacobson, who also oversees the BracketOdds STEM learning laboratory and interactive bracket chooser.

Engineer a Sneaker. NGSS-aligned design activity from the University of Colorado, Boulder’s TeachEngineering online lesson-plan library. [Grades 6-8]

Exploring Binary: Elements of Binary in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Ph.D. computer scientist/blogger Rick Regan looks at brackets in terms of binary math.

Landscape Architects Got Game: A look at some of the award-winning basketball courts that landscape architects have designed around the world and the careers that might inspire young hoops fans.

March Fun: Basketball Lesson Plans. Education World’s list ranges from and elementary-level poetry writing challenge to using high-school math to figure the winner. Includes a You’ve Got Game! game-design challenge for all grade levels.

March Madness: The Science of Shooting A short primer on spin and Air Jordan jump shots from the American Physical Society and North Carolina State University, with Ivanhoe news video.

NCAA Basketball Lesson Plan Resources and Links (part 1). Bracket science, who’s #1, and the history of basketball are among the 15 links listed in this blog post from 21st Century Educational Technology and Learning.

NCAA Basketball Lesson Plan Resources and Links (part 2). 15 more problem-based learning links from 21st Century Educational Technology and Learning.

VIDEO: PBS Basketball Science. Lay-up angles, curvy bounce passes, delightful dribbling and more! The Curious Crew learns how simple scientific principals improve the game of basketball. STEM Challenge: Designing a mini-free throw machine.

STEM in Sports. This collection of video Time-Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds includes a trash-basket toss game that reinforces such math concepts as vectors and parabolas.

Thirty NCAA Basketball Lesson Links: Best Classroom Lessons Never Taught. Indiana’s former STEM educator of the year suggests hands-on ways to incorporate students’ excitement about basketball brackets in math, geography, and other lessons, such as performing a cost-benefit analysis by determining whether LeBron James should mow his own lawn.

Trashketball. This video-rich lesson in collecting and charting data from Modeling Middle School Mathematics rotates students to different stations where they can score one, two, or three points by tossing wadded up paper balls into the waste basket.

Updated March 2019

Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, Grades K-5, Lesson Plans, Special Features, Web Resources

Tags: basketball, bracketOdds, Class Activities, Curriculum, Engineering, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, hoops, Internet Resources, Lesson Plans, March Madness, NCAA, Physics, Resources for Teachers, Sports, STEM education, Teacher Resources