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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1456653
This article is part of the Research Topic Mathematical Thinking, Practices, and Processes in Non-formal Learning Environments View all 7 articles

Connecting Mathematics and Sports in Informal Learning Spaces

Provisionally accepted
Erin Turner Erin Turner 1*Sanlyn Buxner Sanlyn Buxner 1Seneca Miller Seneca Miller 1Christina Baze Christina Baze 2Ricardo Valerdi Ricardo Valerdi 1
  • 1 University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
  • 2 Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    There is a critical need to develop innovative educational strategies that engage youth in meaningful mathematics learning, particularly students from groups that have been historically marginalized in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In this study, we explore youths' participation in two collaborative projects from the Growing Mathletes curriculum which combines baseball contexts and mathematics. Our goal was to understand the potential of these projects to support youths' engagement with mathematical ideas and practices, and the extent to which youth leveraged a range of resources, including prior experiences and funds of knowledge, to inform their decisions and understanding. The Design a Stadium and Baseball Team Roster projects were implemented in two afterschool setting sites and two summer program sites with 102 youth of all genders in grades 3 to 8. We found the projects contained specific features that supported youths' engagement in three specific mathematical practices: 1) make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, 2) reason abstractly and quantitatively, and 3) construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Additionally, there is evidence that while engaging in these projects youth drew on their own funds of knowledge to inform their decisions and understanding. Our findings point to key implications for researchers, educators, and curriculum developers in informal STEM learning spaces.

    Keywords: Informal STEM learning, mathematics learning, Mathematical practices, project-based learning, sports activities

    Received: 28 Jun 2024; Accepted: 05 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Turner, Buxner, Miller, Baze and Valerdi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Erin Turner, University of Arizona, Tucson, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.