Merit Winner: TMA Excellence in Science Teaching Awards
Tracey Reap
McMeans Junior High
Katy,Texas
America's Pastime
Lesson Plan
Overview
One of the hardest challenges of being a teacher is making
lessons relevant and highly motivating for students.
While developing lessons for physics for 125 seventh grade
students (with ranging levels from academic to GT), I began using
baseball examples to show how physics relates to everyday life. I
was amazed at how both boys and girls were so interested in
exploring baseball and how physics explains the game. I took their
interest and developed an interdisciplinary unit using baseball as
the theme and applied it to language arts with Casey at the bat and
analyzing baseball editorials such as the little league controversy
with the Baby Bronx Bombers or over Alex Rodriguez's high
salary.
Through Texas history, we looked at the towns that major and
minor league teams call home in Texas. With joint lessons in math
and science we are able to use many math TAAS objectives such as
ratios, graphing and mean, median and mode. We were able to
apply the math skills with the physics knowledge to a variety of
science labs that looked at such things as air resistance (related
to the elevation of different ball park), how the baseball will
react at different temperatures, how altering the materials in a
baseball will change how the ball performs.
We have studied how friction plays a major part in the game and
how Newton's Three Laws of Motion apply to baseball. Students have
had the pleasure of working with former Atlanta Braves pitcher Rick
Lukin, who uses his vast knowledge of physics to give the students
an inside perspective of the game. Tampa Bay pitcher Ryan Rupe
comes in each year to do a lab with the students at the end of our
unit and works with them on how air resistance, the way the ball is
thrown and the materials in the baseball all work together to
determine the path the ball will follow when pitched.
At the end of the unit, we have two culminating projects. The
students are challenged to create a baseball that will not allow
the batters to hit as many home runs as they have done in the
past. We take these balls out to the park and we test each
ball for its successfulness. Math and science also do a joint
project with the students. The students are given the task of
traveling to every major ballpark in the U.S. to see a home game.
They are given a budget, a time line, and a set of rules to follow
to accomplish this task. The resulting project is a scrapbook
detailing their journey throughout the country watching America's
Pastime. Once the unit is completed, we take a field trip out to
Enron Field to tour the field and look at how physics was applied
to build Enron and to gain first hand experience in how the field
makes a difference in the playing of the game.
The sample I am submitting is a three to four day lab in which
students analyze how the characteristics of a baseball directly
influence how the baseball reacts to different environmental
conditions.
I developed this lab using Major League Baseball (MLB), the
Colorado Rockies and Think Quest-Exploring Baseball Web sites to
gain information about the different ballparks, the rules of
baseball and the physics behind the game. I also used the
book,
Physics of Baseball
for information about physics and how it relates to a baseball. I
also adapted the Science Kit's Dissecting baseball lab for activity
#1. In this lab, Science Kit tested two different baseballs and
related how well they bounced compared to the materials in them. I
loved the concept they were attempting to teach but I saw so much
more potential to this very basic lab. I found the lab to be very
simplistic and with my students, I want to challenge their minds
further. I used this basic concept in their lab to expand it to the
range of the six commonly used baseballs from tee-ball through the
Major Leagues. After completing the bounce test, I not only took
this lab much further with the range of questions the students were
required to answer but then I developed activities # 2-4 to extend
this concept to the game. Using the information from these sources,
I developed a lab where the students test the materials used to
make baseballs, how the baseball's performance changes with
different temperatures, and how air resistance will affect the ball
in ballparks at different altitudes.
Objectives
- The student will be able to apply all three of Newton's Laws
of Motion to the game of baseball. Ex: Law 1: A ball will remain
at rest until a player decides to throw it, Law 2: The harder you
hit the ball the farther it will go, Law 3:When a pitcher throws
the ball one direction, the batter will hit the ball in the
opposite direction of the pitch.
- The student will be able to compare and contrast the
materials used in different styles of baseballs to their
performance ability. Ex: The more the baseball weighs the more
force that is needed to hit the ball a desired distance.
- The student will be able to determine how the temperatures of
a given object will increase/decrease its ability to be hit
farther. Ex: a baseball that is warmer will travel farther than a
baseball that is colder.
- Given eight Major League baseballs, the student will be able
to determine what the MLB guidelines are for the making of one of
their baseballs. Ex: After weighing and taking measurements of
the baseballs, they should determine that a baseball must be in a
range of 5-5 ¼ ounces and have a circumference between 9-9 ¼
inches.
- The student will be able to determine how friction may be
reduced or increased in a ballpark to make the desired
outcome. Ex: The pitcher wants the ball to roll slower in
the infield-The student would determine that making the grass
longer will increase friction thus slowing down the balls
speed.
Materials Needed
- Meter stick
- Tape measure
- Triple Beam Balance
- 1 frozen Major League Baseball for activity #3
- ½ of a baseball cut open for students to view how it is
made-give after activity #2 I cut ½ of each type so they can see
how each ball is made.
- Copy of Lab packet
- 1 each of 6 different types of baseballs.
- Tee ball-number the ball #1
- Little League-number the ball #2
- Pony League-number the ball #3
- High School-number the ball #4
- College-number the ball #5
- Major League Baseball-number the ball #6
For the Class:
You will need eight different major league baseballs for the class
to share in measuring. Give each of these baseballs a letter A to
H.
Implementation
- Divide students into groups of two to three students and hand
out the materials.
-
Activity 1: What's in a baseball?
The students are to measure the circumference and the mass of
each baseball. They are also to test how high each baseball
will bounce. To test the bounce, place the meter stick so
that the 0 is on the floor. Place the baseball at the top
of the meter stick, drop the ball and then record the height of
the bounce onto the data chart. Complete the given questions and
create a bar graph to compare the baseballs.
-
Activity 2: What makes a Major League Baseball so
good?
Give each group one or two of the Major League Baseballs. The
students will share these baseballs; they are to use them to
measure the circumference, the mass, and the bounce height.
Using this information, they are to determine what MLB states
that a regulation baseball must have: A. materials, B. weight,
and C. circumference. Once they have determined this, the
students may look at the baseball that has been cut in half to
see how it is made. Once they have seen the materials, they
are to answer the questions on how these materials affected the
performance of the MLB compared to the other balls they have
tested and why MLB chose this combination of materials for their
baseballs.
-
Activity 3: Temperatures vs. Performance.
Once they have studied the baseballs and they are familiar with
how they will perform, they are to take it to the next level and
apply how the performance would change as the environment around
it changes. This activity allows the students to analyze how
temperature changes through the season affect how the ball will
carry through the air. The students take a room temperature
baseball and a frozen baseball and they are to complete the
bounce test three times with each baseball then compare how the
two baseballs performed. They should realize that the
baseball that was frozen would bounce up to 30 percent less than
the room temperature baseball. They are to then apply these
figures to the temperature differences that players would
experience in Chicago in April to games being played in Houston
in August.
-
Activity 4: Air Resistance and Friction.
Two of the outside forces that act on a baseball are air
resistance and friction. In this section we discuss how air
resistance and friction can be advantages and disadvantages in
playing baseball. First we discuss friction. We review what
friction is and they watch a short movie on how friction affects
the game of baseball. We brainstorm on how we could reduce
friction to make the game better and also what could be done to
increase friction to help the game. We also look at how
friction affects the two different types of slides, and depending
on the situation, when would use each slide be best used knowing
what will happen because of friction. Secondly, we explore how
air resistance at different elevations can change how far a
baseball will travel. We talk about how at higher
elevations there are the fewer air molecules. The students
hypothesize about how this will affect the ball. After
brainstorming, we discuss the two major concepts, the fewer air
molecules result in the lower the air resistance thus causing the
ball to travel further and secondly the lower the air resistance
will change the how a pitcher pitches. Because of the lower
air resistance, pitches will react differently in Colorado with a
much higher elevation than in Dallas with a lower elevation. I
use the curve ball as an example. The pitcher throws the
ball expecting the ball to have a curved path towards the plate
because of the angle at which it is thrown and the number of
seams in the rotation. Because of the difference in air
molecules, the ball will curve less with fewer air
molecules. If the pitcher does not account for this the
pitch will be exactly where the batter would love to hit it out
of the ballpark.
Evaluation Tool
The students are evaluated in several areas. First they
are evaluated by their lab report that is due at the end of the
five activities. There is also classroom discussion and times
where I question the students for understanding. The end of
each activity we have a time to talk about what was learned in the
section and how this leads into the next section of the
lesson. Through the classroom discussion I am able to see
what concepts the students learned, what needs to be redirected and
what concepts need to be reinforced. This also gives me the
opportunity to guide the students in the direction for the next
activity and what to look for as they explore deeper concepts as
they go along. Through this brainstorming, practice and
classroom discussion, the students are able to take many
complicated physics concepts and not only learn what they mean but
apply them in a fun and exciting way.
Effectiveness
Whenever you are able to take a concept that is difficult to
learn and make it fun, the students will respond positively and
they are able to open up to the many possibilities of
physics.
Through the baseball lessons, I am able to take something that
the students enjoy and show them how science plays an intrical part
of the game. I believe that you have to apply learning to the
students' interest; this is when you are able to take even the most
difficult of concepts and make them come alive. With the children
of today, all teachers are challenged to make learning fun,
exciting and relevant. By bringing in baseball players,
movies, field trips, this shows the kids the reasons behind all of
the knowledge they are absorbing. Kids always want to know
why and the how. This lesson hits it out of the ballpark.
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