The 2013 Simple Gifts Fellowship Grants were recently awarded, and we will be highlighting the different recipients each week.

Ken Eichberg, a math educator at Sampson Early College, is one of our excited grantees. His grant title is, “Take Me out to the Ball Game, Please!” Ken is planning a four-week trip to visit 12 different Major League Baseball stadiums. Have you ever thought of all the math concepts related to baseball? These are just a few of the math connections mentioned in his proposal. Every baseball stadium has different dimensions in the outfield. Every stadium also has its own pricing at the concessions stand. Teams are composed of players from around the world. Think of the statistical information that can be analyzed and interpreted. Quadratics, matrices, statistics, scale, geometry, and other math concepts are all part of his journey.

Ken even is going to visit the National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) in NYC. The goal of MoMath is to “highlight the role of mathematics in our society and reveal the connections between math and music, math and art, math and literature, and math and finance.” MoMath just opened on December 15, 2012. The New York Times recently called this new museum, “high-tech playground with the goal to show that math is fun, engaging, exciting. MoMath is a proselytizing museum… it is exhilarating to see math so exuberantly celebrated.”

Of course, the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. is on his trip schedule too. It will be a fun summer for our grantee and then a fun learning year for Ken’s students. It will be wonderful to see Ken apply his love of baseball to future lessons in the classroom. He even plans on taking his students to a Carolina Mudcats game. To vicariously enjoy Ken’s adventure, you go to his blog on the web. (http://mreichbergsbaseballtrip2013.wordpress.com). Simple Gifts looks forward to reading about Ken’s adventure.

Educators excited about Ken’s grant; look into applying for our The Love of Learning grant. It is the next Simple Gifts grant opportunity and has a deadline of Feb. 1, 2013.