Harnessing Fan Power
Don't tell your students about Belinda Dukes' school, or they'll all want to go there. Imagine studying the usually brain-bending subjects of statistics and geometry through the theme of baseball, and then receiving a visit from Florida Marlins shortstop Alex Gonzales, and THEN, what would you say to some complimentary tickets to home games, say a thousand of them? With Pro Player Stadium only a few minutes away, that's life at Hialeah Middle School in Hialeah, Florida, where technology and baseball have elevated the study of mathematics in a truly engaging way.

High Interest + High Tech = Engaged Learners
With a pending doctoral degree in education technology and nine years of using computers in the classroom, Ms. Dukes knew what she was doing when she developed her technology-supported math project with a baseball theme. The mathematics of baseball is applicable to any of her ninth-grade math courses. "Baseball is a game of numbers," she says, "So geometry, algebra, statistics and computation all tie in. I just shift the emphasis depending on the subject." The slight-of-hand approach to teaching hard concepts through motivating themes is natural for Audrey. "The academic tasks are so deeply embedded in this project that students never feel like they're doing drudge work," Belinda says, "All the math they do has an immediate purpose." Math skills get a workout as students examine such nuances of the game as the difference between a batter's RBI and slugging percentage. As students research the basic and arcane factors that support their choice of the game's best player, technology and spreadsheet analysis becomes a key component of the Play Ball! math project.

Students Teaching Students
Belinda takes pleasure in seeing students teach each other during project-centered math. "Some kids don't have any background in baseball, so I make sure there's an expert in every group. It's great to watch a student explain how a player's batting average is calculated and then go on to explain why it matters." The baseball experts might not be the same people who are experts in technology or math, so there are more opportunities for different students to act in leadership roles.

Next Season
Even if Pro Player Stadium wasn't close by, it's a sure bet that baseball will continue to be a presence at Hialeah Middle School. Belinda Dukes hopes to team up with her colleagues to develop more interdisciplinary lessons based on the game. In social studies students might learn the history of baseball, while in language arts they could study the "flawed hero" archetype as depicted in "Casey at the Bat." In geography they could study how past and present locations of major league teams mirror the pattern of growth in the U.S., and PE class would be the place to perfect a screwball pitch.