Baseball Fever

The good folks at Combs Elementary recently invited me to attend a presentation given by Mr. Kevin Durham. You see, Mrs. Maggiolo's class is beginning a unit on statistics and they are going to use the new baseball season as their springboard to learning. Kevin works for mlb.com, Major League Baseball's website. While their office is in New York City, Kevin works remotely and lives in Wake County. Students and adults were fascinated by the amount of detail given to such a simple game. In fact, the "Gameday" site updates each player's statistics after every pitch!

Students are learning how to compute earned run averages, on-base percentages and many other categories. Later, they will use ratios and probabilities to determine if a player's salary is proportionate to his performance. What a cool unit! Makes me want to return to the 5th Grade.

Way to go, Mrs. Maggiolo! Play ball!

Posted by Jeff Nash, the Answer Man at 09:01 AM on April 17, 2007 | Leave Feedback

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