Every year, March Madness captivates sports fans across the country. From fans of blue blood basketball programs hoping this will be the year their storied team wins it all to fans of small colleges praying their team will pull off a Cinderella run, everyone has a rooting interest.

While the college basketball season and March Madness ended recently with the Florida Gators defeating the Houston Cougars, the madness has lived on in Steel Valley Middle School. Mr. Michael Hofbauer’s eighth grade science classes have been focused on a different kind of bracket this spring – March Mammal Madness, an annual competition run by scientists and educators at Arizona State University. The program began over a decade ago as an interactive tool for educators to provide a creative, engaging way for students of all ages to learn more about biology and evolution.

Much like the college basketball bracket, 64 organisms are seeded 1-16 in four different themed regions. They’re matched up against each other, with the favored organism “hosting” in their preferred habitat in the first few rounds. Later rounds feature a random habitat that the organisms are “magically” relocated to. Participants are challenged with predicting which organism will outlast the other. It’s not as simple as predator versus prey or large versus small. Some animals have effective camouflage or defense mechanisms. Others might seem to be stronger, but are at a disadvantage in a different habitat.

Educators are provided with a wide range of materials to utilize in their classrooms, with the content scaled for elementary students, middle school students, high school students, and college students. Students at Park Elementary also participated this year as they tried to guess which animals would outlast the rest, reach the Final Roar, and ultimately be crowned champion. The team at Arizona State uses a weighted randomizer to determine a result for each match-up and releases creative videos for each round to unveil and explain the results. 

Not only did Mr. Hofbauer’s students make their predictions of who would win March Mammal Madness, but they’ve completed additional projects alongside their brackets. For the first round, students were randomly assigned a match-up and tasked with creating a short, visual presentation explaining the result. 

For the championship round, the students drew inspiration from classic boxing ads and created their own “Fight Night” posters.

The final project has a Western Pennsylvania flavorand gives the students an opportunity to create a rematch from the tournament or determine what the championship round should have looked like. Students will either create a magazine article, comic strip, or a video through various apps on their iPads. Their final projects must include a visual element and be backed by a scientific explanation for the result. Each battle also must take place in a randomly assigned Pennsylvania location – the Monongahela River and its banks, the Laurel Caverns, the Allegheny National Forest, and Pennsylvania’s Peatlands (or Wetlands).

The students have been busy writing their narratives, checking their facts, and creating their visuals for their projects throughout April. March may be over, but the Madness continues on in Mr. Hofbauer’s classroom.