Math Teacher's Baseball Trip

Hey everyone!

I am a HS Math Teacher and was recently awarded a grant to spend the month of June traveling to over 12 different stadiums/cities. My plan is to use Megabus as my mode of transportation for most of the trip. I will be traveling to Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York (NYY), Boston, Cooperstown, New York (NYM).

My love of baseball drives this project. Many students have never become familiar with this wonderful sport. My goal is to introduce them to baseball, while also showing the importance of math in the sport through quadratics, matrices, statistics, scale, and geometry.

I used this site immensely in the design and planning of my trip, so I wanted to introduce myself and say THANK YOU to all that have contributed to Ballpark Chasers. I also wanted to share my trip with all of you and would love any suggestions/advice that you all have, as well.

I included my grant proposal Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Please.pdf, Calendar.pdf, and Itinerary.pdf. Enjoy!

Blog: http://mreichbergsbaseballtrip2013.wordpress.com/

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Comment by Brendan W. on January 21, 2013 at 7:12pm: I wish you were my High School Math Teacher. My district would never allow this. In Upstate NY, we've gone to trips to Cooperstown, Fenway Park, and the grade above me went to a Subway Series game. Megabus is unreliable though, and you'd have to deal with the travel after. Like in NY, you'd have to know to bring the students on the subway after. My blog is ballparkguide.blogspot.com

Comment by Steve on January 20, 2013 at 6:24am: That sounds like a great trip! Very creative idea and excellent use of real-world applications to teach those math concepts, I'm not surprised you were selected to receive the grant. This is way cooler than the physics day I attended at Great Adventure theme park in New Jersey way back in high school (measuring stuff like acceleration on the roller coaster, etc).
If you're looking for hometown folks to go to any of these games with, I'm in DC now and if the scheduling works out, my son and I would love to join you for the Nats game.

Comment by Jon (4/6) on January 16, 2013 at 9:12am: That sounds like an awesome trip. I would have loved to have done that while in high school. Actually, that sounds like an awesome trip to make now, as well.

Comment by Ken Eichberg on January 14, 2013 at 1:29pm: Thank you Tim and Michael,

Tim: I am actually going on the trip by myself (no students). The trip is my personal experience, and what I bring back from each stadium will be used in the classroom. I am taking my students to a minor league game, either Carolina Mudcats or Durham Bulls game. I will look into taking Amtrak for a change of scenery. Megabus is just so easy, especially with their $1 fares!!

Michael: Most of my students are Hispanic, so naturally they are more interested in soccer. I can not get into the sport (too slow, not enough goals), but to each their own. I am taking my students to a minor league game and hope to work something out with the team to let my students on the field before or after the game to measure different parts of the field. Hopefully they can work something out!

Comment by michael schwartz (71) on January 14, 2013 at 12:18pm: Congrats on receiving the grant, Ken. This will be the adventure of a lifetime, and maybe you will be able to wean some of your students from the barbaric football to the more cerebral baseball! On the math side, one thing I've been interested in doing, but lacked the math skills to do (integral calculus?), is to measure the area of major league outfields, specifically the area "under the curve" of the outfield fence/wall, with the baseline being the line drawn from one foul pole to the other. Intuitively a "hitter's ballpark" would have a smaller area than a "pitcher's ballpark" with its more spacious outfield, but I've never seen the areas for major league ballparks calculated, and things are not always what they seem. At any rate, keep us all posted on your progress.

Comment by Tim Choiniere on January 14, 2013 at 9:53am: Looks like a great itinerary. I hope you are also going to take advantage of the cities and teach them some history as well (thinking especially of DC thru Boston Corridor).

1 change I would suggest is to include at least 1 leg on Amtrak so that they could experience a different mode of transportation. Maybe New York to Boston? Just a thought.

There is a book that you may want to get and maybe use as a guide / example. "The Physics of Baseball by Robert Adair".

Enjoy this trip. Will be a great learning experience for you and your students.