What is an atmospheric river (AR)?

North America from space. Elements furnished by NASA - https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers

How are they ranked? Students become familiar with this weather phenomena and learn how the different ARs are measured. To more fully understand their power, students compare the strength of an AR to the momentum of a Mack truck. They need to convert meters/second to miles/hour. How strong are ARs really? Are they all dangerous?

The activity: AtmosphericRiver.pdf

How hard it is to pick the perfect bracket?

March Madness Men's and Women's Brackets

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Clicking on this image will show it larger in a new window.

Games have begun and there have been several upsets but March Madness won't be over until the finals on April 3rd and 4th. March Madness bracket predictions can still be reworked.

This year there will are 68 men's and 64 women's college basketball teams in the tournaments.

If you try to predict how the games will play out by filling out a bracket, what are your chances of picking every game? How does the change from 64 to 65 to now, 68 teams in the field complicate things?  How many brackets would you need to fill out to pick every possibility?

March Madness – Does seeding really matter?

Always updated!
March Madness, the big 68 team college basketball tournament, will now take over our TV viewing during the weekends of March. School and office friends are filling out brackets.  Engage your students in percents as they get excited about March Madness. Is getting a higher seed really an advantage?  Use 30 years of data to help determine for which seeds it makes sense to pick an upset.  Finally, students determine a general strategy for picking games in the first round.

Just some March Madness math

Today, March 12th, is selection Sunday. Tomorrow we'll know how the college basketball teams are seeded and bracketology can begin.

Introduce your students to the meaning and excitement of March Madness with this activity describing the process of the tournament and how college basketball fans get engaged in picking predicted brackets.

The activity: march-madnessMath2023.pdf