March Madness: Relevance in the Classroom

Using brackets and a head to head tournament about anything in science may seem impossible. But during March I love to find opportunities to do so. to bring the main topic of conversation of many students into the classroom. Bringing March Madness, relevance into my classroom. First I set up a giant bracket on the wall. Leaving the spaces vacant. Then depending on the unit, I provide merely the topic and then let students decide what "competitions" occur. This year I decided to do food webs and competition within habitats. Students just finished creating their biomes in a bottle so this fit right in to the conversation.

To inject some March Madness into my science lessons, I have my students use their knowledge of the food chain to fill out a tournament bracket with head-to-head battles between various animals in their chosen ecosystem. They do this by making a special bracket featuring animals they have been studying. I use Desert, Aquatic, Rain Forest, and Tundra/Taiga much like the NCAA regions (South, Midwest, East, West). My students have fun imagining battles between the animals and debating who might win the ultimate food chain championship.

I actually got this idea from Moody Gardens. They have an exhibit with some great brackets my kids loved filling out while we explored the museum. A very cool ideas that can be used in the classroom.