There aren’t many sports that use negative numbers. (I’ve never actually had a negative golf score myself.) But if you’re a professional, like Tiger Woods or Michelle Wie, you will see negative numbers on your score card. And if you’re playing in a 3-day,or 4-day tournament, your final score will be the average of these scores. You must add your integers (positive and negative numbers), and then divide the integers by the number of days in the tournament.
Golf in the Family
I had to create a math lesson using golf. After all, I grew up in a golfing family. Dad used to practice his golf swing by hitting golf balls into the cornfields surrounding our house. He would then send his children into the fields to retrieve his lost golf balls. (We thought it was a fun type of Easter egg hunt!) He had a system that worked perfectly for him! My mother, at the age of 87, still plays every chance she gets. My two brothers, Randy and Kevin, are avid golfers, and a few of the grandchildren play now too. My daughter, Amanda, plays with her Golden Retriever puppy, Rosie, seated on her cart. So, golf has always been a part of my life in some way.
Integrating Golf into Teaching Math
Now, I use golf to teach division of integers with red and yellow integer chips. When we were forced to put our lessons online, I had to create a digital version of this lesson. Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie are used as examples as they attempt to find the average of their scores in a golf tournament of 3 or 4 days.
Dividing Integers with Integer Chips
If Tiger plays in a 3-day tournament, and his scores are 3, -5, and -4, what is his final score for the tournament? To do this with integer chips, students move the red (negative) and yellow (positive) chips around their screen. To add the scores, they line up 3 yellow chips in one row, and 9 red chips (-4 + -5) in the next row. They then remove the zero pairs, (a zero pair is one red and one yellow chip that add up to zero) and what is left is 6 red chips. So, 3 + -5 + -4 = -6. Now the next step to find the average is take -6 and divide by the number of days in the tournament (or the number of scores). To show -6 divided by three, the students divide the 6 red chips into 3 equal groups. Each group will have 2 red chips, so Tiger’s average score is -2.
The lesson continues to teach the students how to divide if they are dividing by a negative number, and then leads the students to determine the rules for dividing integers.
Real Life Examples
Teachers are always looking for real life examples when teaching math. Every year we hear, “When am I ever going to use this?” Well, here is one example!
Dividing Integers with Integer Chips is the 4th in a series, along with Adding Integers with Integer Chips, Subtracting Integers with Integer Chips, and Multiplying Integers with Integer Chips. Look for these lesson in my store. Go to the Home page and click on “SHOP NOW“.
