2008+March+Madness

[|Mr. Meyer's March Madness links page]

The March Madness Interdisciplinary project is a integrated thematic unit I've taught since seeing it presented at MAMSE (Middle School Educators Conference) back in 1997. Each year it progresses and develops. I've included some pictures of the poster version of the project. With the integration of web 2.0 as a learning tool, our focus has veered away from the hands on materials to the digital presentation. Below are links to student's work on this year's Men's tournament.

2008 Tournament Teams

2009 Tournament Teams

UNC student double bar graphs for data collection and analysis

Students will use the March Madness tournament as a vehicle to study concepts in Math, Social Studies, Science, Reading, Language Arts, Spelling, Technology, Art, Health, and Physical Education.

Components to the March Madness wiki project:


 * Social Studies** - students will create an interactive google map illustrating the route from Laingsburg to their college / university. Push pins on the route will include photos of landmarks, and their "personal narrative" trip. Students will also post weekly current events regarding their college / university / other March Madness teams / events.


 * Math** - students will track the data for all games played in the tournament. They will make a double bar graph for the winning team and each team they played along the way. Students will also research their college / university's student data and create appropriate graphs for gender breakdown of men/women using a pie/circle graph, and race/ethnicity. These graphs will be exported and pasted onto their team's pages. Finally, a heart rate graph will be created and posted illustrating each student's heart rate at various periods of rest/activity.


 * Reading** - students will research and complete a informational packet on the attributes / characteristics for each college / university. This information will be posted to the wiki. Students will utilize a number of web links to access and scrutinize information to determine validity of the data presented.


 * Language Arts** - students will create a personal narrative for a "mock trip" they take from Laingsburg to their college / university. Creative writing, research on 3 points of interest as stops, fictious events along the way, spelling, and grammar are all part of this section. The writing chunks for the stops will be posted within google maps as push-pins.


 * Science** - Heart rate and physical fitness activites will be incorporated into weekly lessons. Healthy tips and food pyramids will be discussed and blogged about on student's blogs.


 * Art** - Students will re-create their logo for their college / university using the overhead and colors. Images will be scanned / photographed and posted onto their team's wiki page. Digital photo manipulations (ala Andy Warhol) will be posted to their team's pages as well.


 * Technology** - every part of the online project will be posted here to this wiki. Each student will be assigned two teams, and only they will post to that page. I'm hoping we find interesting widgets to add to this wiki as well!


 * Critical Thinking** - students will engage their thinking in ways that they most likely haven't before. We will discuss online research and viewing data / information with a critical eye. This is a very challenging unit, and students will find a higher degree of autonomy, but mini-deadlines will also be present to keep students "on track."