I'm a word nerd at heart, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the ways math comes to life around me. Math is especially obvious in sports, and since we're in the throes of the Winter Olympics, our education team here at Scholastic put together some fun math facts about Sochi!
1. It's all about the numbers: The 2014 Winter Olympics consist of 16 days, 98 medals, 88 nations, and 2,900 athletes.
2. Curling is all about geometry. Here's a fun question to ask your kids and students: If a curling sheet is 150 ft long and 16 ft & 5 in wide, what is its area and perimeter?
3. Judging is a percentage game. To score each athlete in the freestyle ski event, judges factor in the quality of turns (50%), air (25%), and speed (25%).
4. Math saves the day! Olympic workers added 130 feet to the biathlon track because it was too short!
5. In 2010, US Olympian Shani Davis won gold in the 1000m speed skating event, finishing in 1:08 minutes. Ask your students: What was his average speed?
Find more great Olympic resources here!
