Discover How to Connect Math Projects and Sports

Do you enjoy playing or watching a sport? Do you have a high school math science project coming up? Math projects and sports can have quite a bit of a connection with one another; here are some ideas about how you can turn aspects of your favorite sport into a top-quality high school math project.

Baseball is a sport where math is crucial. A player's batting average is the ratio of the number of hits the player has had to the number of times he or she has been at bats. The connection between math projects and sports can be illustrated in a project that analyzes batting averages.

In a math science fair project on baseball, you could focus on problems like this: Given that a player has a batting average of 0.250 after 120 times at bat, how many hits would he need to make in the next 80 times at bat to raise his average to 0.30? (Hint: the answer is 30 hits. Now try to figure out why.)

Math projects and sports could also be connected in other ways. The performance of basketball players is evaluated on the basis of the percentage of shots they make out of the total shots they attempt. A player might even have different percentages for different types of shots, such free throws, field goals, or three-point shots.

Analyzing distances traveled by football players can be a great way to link math projects and sports. Each football field is 100 yards in length, and the 50-yard line separates each team's half of the field from the other. To each side of the 50-yard line, the yard lines are counted down by fives, so that each team's 10-yard line is 40 yards away from the 50-yard line, but in opposite directions.

Here's a problem: given that a football traveled from Team A's 45-yard line to Team B's 30-yard line, how many yards did the football travel in all? (Hint: the answer is 25 yards. Now try to figure out why.)

Another innovative idea for connecting math projects and sports involves bowling. The determination of bowling scores is actually a rather intricate mathematical process; explaining it could occupy a substantial portion of a sports-related math project.

In each bowling frame, the player gets two tries to knock down ten pins. A strike -- knocking down all ten pins using just the first ball -- and a spare -- knocking down all ten pins with two balls -- each have their own distinct effects on the determination of the player's score. Explore their effects in depth and impress your teachers and science fair judges. As an added benefit, you'll be able to bowl without relying on electronic devices to calculate scores for you. Remember to check out the math science fair projects guide to increase your odds of winning at the fair.

Math projects and sports are closely related, if you look in the right places. Turning aspects of your favorite sport into an excellent math science fair projects can be among the most interesting science fair mathematical experiment activities you undertake.