FYMBL Basketball Camp in South Carolina

Imagine this: a girl who loves basketball teaches the data science/stats of playing basketball to a group of kids who love basketball at a basketball court…The learning context + educator background + student interest + lesson topic are all connected by a thread—basketball! 

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Sanvi: ​"I began the lesson with a warm-up discussion on the psychology of asking questions. I asked, “Why do you think it’s beneficial to ask questions?” and encouraged students to share their thoughts. After listening, I explained how questioning helps us recognize what we don’t know, activates the brain’s reward system, and strengthens memory—linking curiosity to learning and critical thinking.

 

I then led a hands-on basketball activity to explore data distributions. Students each took ten free throws, and we plotted the class results on a dot plot. When students noticed the data looked “evenly spread out,” I introduced the term “symmetric” and explained that the mean and median are close in such cases. In a second round with layup data, the graph appeared left-skewed. I guided students to notice the tail direction and compare the mean and median, showing that the mean was smaller. By the end, students understood how the shape of a distribution affects measures of center and how the mean 'follows the tail.'"