Golf Making Math Fun, Exciting STEM Students Crunch the Numbers to Generate Swing Speed and Distance

For most math teachers, it’s sometimes difficult to transform their passion with numbers to high school students juggling an array of course materials. It’s an awkward balancing act that sometimes cultivates a culture of disinterested math students.

Tanner Hughes, who teaches both geometry and algebra at NIHF STEM High School at Robinson CLC,  unveiled a learning tool and method that seemingly piques the interest of his Algebra 2 students and engages them to tackle the complex problems of Quadratic Functions.

The essential purpose of Quadratic Functions is to model real-world phenomena with curved, parabolic paths such as projectile motions like throwing a ball and the design of objects like roller coasters.

In the case of Hughes’ students, he introduced his students to golf during a field trip at Topgolf Akron. To Hughes’ surprise, even students lacking passion for golf, were seemingly excited to solve problems beyond paper and the classroom.

“Students applied their understanding of quadratic equations to analyze the parabolic motion of golf balls in real time—connecting math to a fun, real-world experience,” Hughes explained. “They found they could model the height, velocity, and overall trajectory of the golf ball by creating quadratic equations and using their algebra skills. The content also connects to topics they will learn in their Physics class, such as using vectors to represent velocities to solve problems.”

Hughes’ willingness to teach outside the sometimes rigid box, has many of his current and past students wanting more opportunities to learn in environments such as Topgolf.

“Honestly, being in the classroom, I think some of us tend to get distracted,” Kristiona Johnson-Scott said. “So, I felt like being at Topgolf kept me on track because I was like, yeah, I need to go." But also putting (data) on a piece of paper, it kept me on track and actually made learning about math fun.”

“Some kids might not like math but when you combine it with something fun to do, I feel like it gives you a kind of motivation to keep on going,” Anna Musakhanyan said. “I got to do an activity, too, that makes sense of the (math) problems.”

Johnson-Scott and Musakhanyan were among the nearly 40 STEM students who made the trip to Topgolf. Now, Hughes is considering a proposal to have more student participants – including those in other class subjects such as physics. 

“The students really had a nice time and were very engaging,” said Hughes, who was accompanied by a handful of other teachers and chaperones.  “It was interesting watching the students helping each other with the math. While one person's up there taking the shot, another student is recording the data. They found themselves working together through the problems.

“In previous years, maybe I take them down to the gym and I say, "Okay, go with your groups and go do this thing and they kind of float around, not quite sure what to do and not quite as engaged. I  think this field trip helped organize a nice collaborative work environment for the students.”

The students were challenged to figure out the Quadratic Functions of hitting the golf ball on the driving range. More specifically, the speed, height and velocity of the ball in flight.   

The formula is both complex and wonky: It’s the polynomial function with the highest power of two, written in the standard form \(f(x)=ax^{2}+bx+c\). Its graph is a U-shaped curve called a parabola, which has a vertex (the highest or lowest point) and an axis of symmetry. Quadratic functions can be solved using factoring, completing the square, or the quadratic formula, and have two solutions.

Hughes recognized that while his students largely understand the problems, there’s a far more interesting way to excite them about math than presenting complex problems solely on paper and blackboards. They may have conquered the problems, but the practical application was necessary for the students to understand the real-world factors of Quadratic Functions.

“Sometimes, you kind of just doze off when you're listening to the teacher or something or when you have all of these math sheets to do,” Musakhanyan said sarcastically. “But I feel like when we were at Topgolf, I had a lot more fun and I wasn't getting tired because, whenever we golfed, I was staying on task because I was able to golf and maybe take a break for a few minutes.

“While I'm golfing and then I'd come back and do my math and then I'd be able to like golf again. I had a lot more fun when we were able to do a hands-on activity like that.”

Hugues said the students benefitted, too, by the presence of Goodyear Tire and Rubber representative, Frank Martynowski. Martynowski shared insights on how mathematics and physics are used in his industry. As part of Goodyear’s partnership with Akron Public Schools, he worked with the STEM students during class prior to the field trip to help them understand the content.

“(Martynowski) was really good at golf, and he would look at the screen and see what he did wrong and then try to fix what went wrong,” Musakhanyan said. “He would run it through (the Quadratic Function), then do it until he fixed the problem. At first, I was confused, but when we actually went and saw the numbers, I felt like I understood it better than I did before.”

Said Johnson-Scott, “It's kind of like breaking down your golf swings, so you could see what you can do better at and know what you have to practice.” Next up for her is figuring out the speed and velocity of the ball as it travels down the lane before impacting the pins, which might improve her scores – another real-time, real-world result of Quadratic Functions.

“I used to always come to math class dreading it, but once I found out we were going on this field trip, I was like, " yeah, let me actually try and learn more and understand it better,” she added. “I feel it made me  more excited to come to class, and excited to learn more.”

For Hughes, this was not about math problems and golf. It was an opportunity for APS students to connect in a meaningful way with the community – including Topgolf.

"I contacted a (Topgolf) representative, and kind of started to set everything up," Hughes said, "and they actually developed their own math activity that we kind of relied on and then interjected some of our own learning into it as well.”

“Anytime you have an opportunity to go out into the community and connect with a local business or an employee or somebody who works in a company, it's really great for the students to go out there and see, there's more out there than just your desk, your worksheet and your textbook. The students got to go see that business in action.”

It all adds up to a successful day for Hughes’ math students.

“I know that a lot of kids and some of my friends who are in other math classes, and weren’t able to make it, were like, "you're so lucky, you got to go to Topgolf,” Musakhanyan said. “So, I feel like a lot of them, even though they knew it was math related, they’re still excited about making the trip the next time.”