Math at Miller Park? (Help Needed)

[razzzorsharp]

So the deal is this. I love baseball and I love teaching and I want to somehow combine the two for a day out at Miller Park with my class. My principal is a stickler for having "no fun" field trips, meaning everything needs to have an educational purpose. My need is this; I am looking for different ways to incorporate math at a Brewer game. Keep in mind these kids are in third grade so we need to keep the OPS and WHIP out of this. Think "Big Unit" from 620...

 

So far I have converting frractions to decimals (ie-Hart went 3/4 so his batting average is .750) Also with this, we could have them draw bats giving us the number of at-bats during the game for said player and circle the amount of times they got on base and create a fraction to go along with it.

 

I need to wow her and I will be creating a Powerpoint to try and get this done. All ideas would be appreciated. They are working on the basics (mult, div, fract, averages)

 

Also, I called my season ticket guy but he has not called back about getting a deal on tickets. Does anyone know if there is one?

[drezdn]

From my wife: You can have the students do something with the prices at the concession stands. For fun, you could have them try to figure out how many Miller Park hot dogs would equal Prince Fielder's salary.

[dadofandrew]

Group tickets do get a discount, I think you need 25.

 

The math is only limited by your imagination.

[razzzorsharp]

Dang my imagination then! I will for sure do concession prices though, thanks.

[thablingster]

You could even have them do the fractions of pitcher balls/strikes, as I know they show that on some of the smaller boards around the stadium.

 

I like the prices idea from drezdn, too. Say the class was given 100 dollars for food, but each student gets their own money, so how much does each student get for concessions?

 

If anyone hits a home run, have them subtract the total distance of the home run from the closest wall estimate (e.g.: if Braun homers to dead center and it is estimated at 430 feet, and the wall is 402 to center, then his ball would have traveled 28 feet further than needed to be a home run). Or alternately, if two players homer have them compare the distances and subtract. Or maybe add them. You could do the same with pitch speeds, or even maybe demonstrate to them by playing the pitch speed game then having them compare your speeds to those of the starting pitchers (hope Suppan is starting that day, of course, lol).

 

You could do things with the time of game. Plus sell the principal on all the children's activities MP put in this year, that can be like recess!

[Blancofan1]

Maybe do something with the dimensions of the park or a regulation baseball field. Like it's 360 feet around the bases, how many times around the diamond would you have to run to equal the distance from the school to Miller Park or something similar.
Maybe a little simpler math, like if the Brewers win 5-3 that day, how many runs would they score in a season.

For what it's worth, I have always been kind of a math geek since I was little and I would have loved a field trip like this.

Here is the link that a 5th grade teacher friend sent to me that she uses. Otherwise, search google for teaching baseball math would probably find you more.

http://www.teachersfirst.com/baseball.htm

[logan82]

razzzorsharp wrote:

So far I have converting frractions to decimals (ie-Hart went 3/4 so his batting average is .750) Also with this, we could have them draw bats giving us the number of at-bats during the game for said player and circle the amount of times they got on base and create a fraction to go along with it.

OBP might be better as it might give you more players to work with.

[Raw Biz]

Here's one they can figure out: Tim Lincecum throws a 98 mph fastball off a 10 inch high pitcher's mound to Ryan Braun who is 60 feet, 6 inches away. Braun is using a 36 inch/33 oz bat and has a bat speed of 104 mph. Braun starts his swing .21 seconds after the ball is released from Lincecum's hand. If Braun makes contact with the ball 4 inches from the top of his bat, in what direction and how far will the ball go?

[nullbyte]

I don't think you should do it. Learning should not be fun.

[Jimbo]

Have them post odds on the sausage race. Have them calculate the vig.

[Fatter than Joey]

There are a lot of great ideas on this board.

 

I know my kids are doing a lot of data collecting and then making ratios and graphs. You could have each kid assigned data to collect like "Choices to win the Sausage rate" -- "how many right handed batters", "strikes/balls" "fat guys in jerseys" "how many balls are hit out of play/lost" etc. -- and then have each kid make a (short) presentation with ratios/graphs -- My son is in 3rd grade and he had to do a thing where he counted all the houses on the block, how many where white, yellow, etc...

 

I think Al is dead on -- you are only going to be limited by your creativity.

[BMuch]

You could have the students calculate how much sales tax is included within the concessions purchased. (Requires division)

Edit: You could see if they could come up with the calculation on their own first. My guess is that noone would get it though.

You could work budgeting into the field trip. Ticket + concessions + souvenirs

[razzzorsharp]

I created a Powerpoint and on Monday my students will show it to her and try and pursuade her. I am crossing my fingers.

[thablingster]

Good luck! Let us know how it goes. You could even try to include parents as chaperone's to make it a family/learning experience as well.

[EsoxLazer]

If you need more persuasion, you could always point to the many "baseball math" sites that come up with a Google/Yahoo search. It would probably go a long ways to show the principal that you aren't just trying to make the field trip fit your wants and that there are a bunch of teachers/institutions using baseball to teach math to younger students. Good luck getting your trip approved!!!

[razzzorsharp]

Well we went today and had an awesome time. We had 21 kids go and around 12 chaperones so the ratio was pretty good for third graders. The park wasn't packed which worked nice for us seeing as how we had our own section. Around 15 of them have never been to a game before and I would say every child enjoyed most aspects of the day, whether it was the baseball, the food, the shopping, the kid zone, etc.

 

I go to a school with a lot of well off families and the parents were very generous with the money they gave their kids (every child bought food and/or souvenirs) so the kids were very excited to overspend! I brought around 10 kids down in various shifts to the kid zone and they loved the sausage race, running against Corey Hart, and the pitch speed thingy. This seems like a great addition to Miller Park. The parents were all very cool as well and the bus ride wasn't all that bad (got home a little before 6).

 

As far as the assignment, I found a variety of ways to assess the different math concepts that we covered throughout the year using numbers/stats from the game keeping the kids involved and interested as to what was going on in the field.

 

I think that this will be a yearly event as everyone, my principal included, all seemed very happy about the results.

[bball123h2]

If I would have known you were coming yesterday, I would have popped over to say hello. Glad to hear you pulled it off, and that everyone had a good time!