Madness in the classroom!
BROKEN BOW - There’s more than basketball to March Madness. In the 5th grade classrooms at North Park Elementary, there’s also academics.
Skylar Morris has been teaching for eight years. During those years, she came up with a curriculum to use elements of the annual NCAA tournament in a curriculum she teaches in all three 5th grade classes at North Park. Now it has grown far beyond that.
“The NCAA developed a curriculum on March Madness,” Morris said. “They used different learning experiences throughout the curriculum that I had implemented over the years, but expanded it, making it bigger and better. We use probability in Math, mapping skills in Social Studies, a book bracket for language arts, and learning the skill of filling out a bracket.”
Morris also has another connection to March Madness. Her aunt, Joan Scott, an Ansley native, is the NCAA Managing Director for the Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championships.
The curriculum, the NCAA March Madness Skills Challenge Next Generation, is currently in 77 schools in 47 cities in nine states - California, Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Wisconsin and Nebraska. More than 10,200 students are involved and are being taught by 204 teachers.
According to information from the NCAA, the original March Madness Skills Challenge Next Generation was to integrate math (probability and ratios) with the March Madness bracket. It has since evolved into multiple subjects to make learning fun.
The curriculum is designed for 5th graders. Last week’s project focused on learning how and why a basketball bounces different amounts when dropped from different heights, focusing on Science forces and gravity. On Thursday, students figured the area and volume of a basketball court. “We focused on making the lessons real world problems that relate to basketball,” Morris said.
At North Park, March Madness has also extended into reading. Morris explained that a bracket was made for books and there is voting each week. Titles on the bracket include “Old Yeller,” “Where the Red Fern Grows,” “Island of the Blue Dolphin” and “The Old Willis Place.” Upon hearing that “Island of the Blue Dolphin” and “The Old Willis Place” lost a round of votes and were knocked out of competition, a chorus of disappointed “No!” rose from the class.
While March Madness can help make academics fun, there’s no escaping that there is a basketball tournament underway. The majority of students in Morris’s class have chosen Gonzaga to win the NCAA men’s tournament. Illinois and Villanova received a couple of votes with Winthrop, Houston, Iowa and Drake also mentioned. For whoever wins, the championship will be lasting. For the 5th graders at North Park, they, too, will have a lasting win, learning new things and having fun while doing it.
Calculating the area of a basketball court using March Madness Skills Challenge Next Generation are fifth graders at North Park Elementary School in Broken Bow. The students do calculations on both paper and by writing with a dry erase marker on the table. See the accompanying article on page A1.
1) From left: Jackson Blakeman, Natalie Thompson (standing), Katie Guffey and Kate Larson. 2) Ryker Staab, Lilly Gregoski and Malakai Hernandez. 3) Isabella Kelley, Zoe Jones, Aron Redinger and Isaiah Kimman. 4) Teagan Woodward, Aliya Myer and Hayden Christen.