With the Men’s World Cup right around the corner, talkSTEM partnered with four teachers at three different schools to create walkSTEMs about the beautiful and dynamic sport of soccer. Teachers and students at CityLab High School, the Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA), Uplift Education, and the William B. Travis Academy (Travis TAG) created seven videos that revealed the hidden geometry, algebra, and physics behind corner kicks, penalty kicks, the field’s turf, and more. Their explorations helped students forge meaningful, tangible connections between a place in their community – the soccer field – and the math concepts they learn in school.
The teachers who participated in this project are valued members of our growing community whom we were thrilled to collaborate with. This was a unique project in which the place and key question featured in each walkSTEM video was selected by teachers. Once each teacher came up with the key question for each video, they wrote out draft scripts for the video, and from there worked in varied ways with students in their classes to develop the content for their video(s). We invite all educators working with students in upper elementary through high school grades at school or in out of school settings to watch these new videos and enjoy the STEM connections to soccer with students.
Tips:
- Pause the videos right when you hear the key question in each video and invite students to come up with a strategy to answer these questions.
- Next, invite your students to pose their own walkSTEM-styled, observation-based questions related to the game of soccer and the places they play as a follow-up, creative activity so they can create their own walkSTEM.
How did the teachers and students come up with their ideas?
To make the walkSTEMs more personal, teachers began by asking students to notice the elements of soccer that excited them most. They used talkSTEM and SMU’s custom STEM/Math walk AI tool to brainstorm ideas.
As Brandon Barrier, AP Calculus & Precalculus Teacher at CityLab High School and IDEA and Soccer Club sponsor, noted, “The penalty kick shootout is one of the most dramatic events in all of sports. Anything can happen. As a math teacher, I wondered what the probability of a penalty kick going in the net would be. We discussed several topics while planning the video, but the penalty kick topic generated the most interest amongst the students.”
As you’ll see in this video, Brandon’s students discovered that the penalty kick taker is twice as likely to score as not, a massive statistical advantage over the goalie. When these students watch a critical penalty kick during this summer’s World Cup, they’ll understand the odds – and the obstacles a goalie must overcome to achieve a statistically unlikely (but emotionally exhilarating) save!
The process of creating these walkSTEMs engaged students’ critical thinking skills and imagination. Put another way… they were fun! “The World Cup is a major global event,” noted Travis TAG’s John Soto (math teacher). “I really loved how this project tied my students’ own lives and after-school activities to it in such a meaningful way. I also enjoyed seeing my students engage in the different parts of the creative process by developing questions, capturing video, and contributing to the production process while using math in a real world context.”
The walkSTEMs also improved students’ understanding of soccer as a multi-faceted phenomenon. According to Geovanni Delgado (math teacher at Travis TAG), “We had the chance to look at the sport through a different lens and use AI to enhance engagement, not only in the sport, but learning STEM skills as well. AI was used to analyze corner kicks and to create a strategy that increased the possibility of scoring. AI analytics helped look at past World Cup corner kicks’ recorded data and angle measurements and build strategies using STEM knowledge. The findings are now being used in local community soccer games.” Turns out these students weren’t just thinking like mathematicians. By using data-driven analytics to maximize on-field performance, they were thinking like professional athletes.
Our Soccer & STEM initiative was a massive success, and we encourage you to check out all seven videos (plus an eighth bonus video) on gomathfinder.org. Which “Specific Place”? Soccer field, of course!
Uplift Education’s Sarah Rainey (math teacher and soccer coach) aptly summed up the experience: “It was such a fun way to see the real world application of some of the topics that we talk about every day in the classroom.”
walkSTEM as a Place-making Activity
Place-making using walkSTEM content means helping learners build a stronger connection to their community and to STEM by discovering that math and STEM ideas already exist in the places around them. Instead of seeing a sidewalk, park, store, bridge, mural, or soccer field as “just a place,” learners begin to see it as a meaningful learning environment. walkSTEM turns everyday spaces into places of curiosity, identity, and belonging. When students and students place-make, not only do they connect academic concepts to local environments, they create stronger relationships with community spaces and deepen both learning and their sense of belonging. This place-making breaks down barriers to STEM education, talkSTEM’s ultimate goal.
Or, wait, this is a soccer blog, so I should say: “talkSTEM’s ultimate GOOOOOOOAAAAL!!!”
