How to Use Pop Culture to Teach Mathematical Thinking

What do Taylor Swift, LeBron James, and Shrek have in common? We can use them to help students explore mathematical ideas! My main mission is to help students connect with mathematics in a meaningful way and using music, sports and pop culture can get students more excited about doing mathematics. I wanted to share a couple of activities that I have used to assess student learning in creative ways.

My inspiration for this activity came from this Stats Center video.  In the video it compares two MLB pitchers’ ERAs for a single season in order to determine who performed the best. Similarly, this activity is designed for students to compare two celebrities (musical artists, athletes, actors ect.) and use the normal model to provide evidence for deciding who is the Greatest of All Time. 

Step 1: Choose two celebrities or athletes to compare. (My favorites are Taylor Swift and Beyonce)

Step 2: Choose a numerical metric to compare for both people. The trick is to choose something that has data for each game, album, or film. I usually have students use an AI resource to help them pull data. Ultimately students will need the average and standard deviation.

Step 3: Once students have determined the average and standard deviation for the numeric metric, students can build a normal model. 

Step 4: Determine probabilities. Students can use Desmos using the normaldist function, the normal distribution stapplet, the normal probability function on TI calculators, or a traditional t table. I always ask for students to determine the probabilities less than, greater than and between. For example, what is the probability that Taylor Swift and Beyonce will sell more than 4 million copies of their next album? 

Step 5: Write a conclusion. Students will determine who the GOAT is using the evidence they just calculated from their probabilities. 

Want the resource? Click HERE!

Which studio produces better animated films? In the Dreamworks’ corner you have How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda and Shrek, while in Pixar’s corner you have classics like the Toy Story franchise, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Monsters Inc. Like most things, we need data to support our beliefs. I use this activity for students to practice analyzing and interpreting single variable data - both categorical and numeric. 

Step 1: Get pumped! I love this video to help remind students about the films each studio produced.

Step 2: Look at the data. I used Kaggle to get the data sets for Pixar and Dreamworks. Students can identify the variables as numeric or categorical and then start generating statistical questions or you can have students choose from the list below. 

Sidenote, if you need a data set for something, Kaggle is the best!

Categorical Questions

• Which studio produces the most films?

• Which studio produces the most films with female lead characters? 

• Which studio produces the most films with male lead characters?

• Which studio produces the most films with non-human characters?

• Which studio produces the most films with human characters?

Numeric Questions

• How do the [choose categorical variable] for each studio compare with [choose numeric variable]?

• How do the rotten tomatoes ratings of the studios compare?

• How do the worldwide box office earnings compare?

Step 3: Analyze the data. I have my students use stapplet, but any data analysis tool can work (CODAP, r studio etc). 

Step 4: Interpret the data. For categorical data, I have my students interpret the relative frequencies and for numeric data, I have them interpret the median value. It is really important that they write what it means in a complete sentence. 

___% of films were produced by Dreamworks.

More than half of Pixar films made more than ____ million dollars worldwide.

Step 5: Write a conclusion. Which studio produces better films? Students must use the statistical evidence they calculated to support their conclusion. 

Want the resource? Click HERE!

These are some of my favorite activities to help students engage in math. My favorite part is that each of these allow students to make decisions and use math as evidence. 

If you want more engaging and relevant resources, click HERE!