BASKETBALL AND MATHEMATICS

Grade: Eighth

Materials: Brochure on Basketball, Explanation of penalties, Overhead monitor that connects to a computer with graphing and spreadsheet abilities.

Objectives: Teach the students to collect and analyze data.

Concepts: Statistics, data-collecting, analyzing, graphs

NCTM Standards: Statistics, Computation, Communication, Estimation

Procedure: At the end of the day preceding this lesson, the students should search the newspaper listings for basketball games that are showing on television or at the local high school gymnasium. Assign them to construct a table and tally the number of fouls each team makes. The student should also note who was responsible for the foul. The three fouls the student should be aware of are Holding, Pushing, and Blocking a shot.

On the day of this lesson, assign the students to groups of four to work on the bar graphs that represent the data. The bar graphs should have the type of foul indicated along the x-axis and the number of fouls committed indicated along the y-axis. Instruct the students to graph the fouls in relation to each other with respect to a given team and then graph each foul with respect to both teams. As they finish, graph the teams with respect to each other in relation to a particular foul on the overhead monitor. Discuss what the bars mean and which teams had the most of a particular foul.

Assessment: For homework, the students should create strategies to deter the number of fouls committed per game. If there is another basketball game tonight, the students should predict the number of fouls to be committed and report on the number actually committed. They should also explain what the prediction was based on and why it was right or wrong.

References: Barry University basketball game, newspaper. television

Cotributors: Major- Corrina Hubbard

Minor- Carol Marinas

Kari Kupfer

WORKSHEET

Name _____________________________ Date ______________________

Types and Signals of fouls:

1) Holding: The opponent tries to restrain the player with the ball using physical contact.

The referee signals this by grasping his two hands together.

2) Pushing: The opponent physically pushes the player with the ball out of route to the basket.

The referee signals this by extending both arms forward towards the judges.

3) Holding on an Attempt: The opponent restrains the player with the ball, as in Holding, but in

this situation, the player is attempting to throw the ball into the basket.

The referee signals this with a chopping motion to the opposite forearm.

Name /       Team A       Team B       Team A        Team B       Team A       Team B        
Number       Holding      Holding      Pushing       Pushing      Holding on   Holding on    
                                                                  an Attempt   an Attempt    

TOTALS

Analyze the Data by totalling each column and creating a bar graph for each team, using the type of foul as the x-axis and the number of foul as the y-axis.