Major League Baseball’s spring training is in full swing and NCAA Basketball’s March Madness is just a couple of weeks away. Therefore, I’d like to pass along a couple of seasonally appropriate sport science videos that you might be able to incorporate into science and or mathematics lessons.

Sport Science: Distraction looks at whether or not all of those waving, screaming fans behind a basketball hoop actually make a difference in whether or not a player makes his or her free throw. You could turn this into an active survey in your school’s gymnasium. Have your students shoot some hoops without distraction and tally their average rate of success. Then have them test out distractions like waving, playing music, or yelling to see if there is a change in the success rate.

Sport Science: Mariano Rivera’s Cutter examines how the great Yankees closer (as a Red Sox fan it was agonizing to type those words) makes the baseball move in flight. The video explains arm angles and pressure points that control the action of the baseball.