Lighthouse Initiative for Texas Classrooms

Physics of Sports

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Why is it important to understand physics in order to play sports? Try the following activity and then write a paragraph to explain the answer to the above question.

  1. Choose a sport of interest. Name it here:
  2. Give an overview of the purpose of the game - desired outcome.
  3. Give an overview of the rules to the game.
  4. Write a hypothesis about the aspect you are most interested in for your game.
  5. List materials you will need to practice your chosen aspect.
  6. Choose one aspect of the game, i.e., pitching, batting, kicking a field goal, etc. Practice this aspect three times with your partner. Collect data after the practice using the following data table.
  7.   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total Average
    A                        
    B                        
    C                        
  8. Graph your results.
  9. Explain your results that you graphed.
  10. Write your paragraph explaining how your experiment answers the question at the beginning of this activity.
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