Anyone else doing March Madness?

Anne Koschmider this is gold! What are some of your favorite justifications for students' picks? I'm curious how far they lean into logic vs. intuition.

Looking forward to seeing the winners!

Thanks for sharing this! Definitely an activity I have to steal!

Well, so far we have gunpowder still in the running. However, firearms lost to the printing press in the Sweet Sixteen. That is generating a lot of commentary!

Vladmir Lenin is also generating some very close matches. He won out over Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong by one point in each match!

I present my Atlantic Revolutions and Industrial Revolution unit by first establishing an intellectual foundation, focusing on the defining ideas of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. From there, we transition into a deep dive on Enlightenment ideologies to determine which specific thinkers and concepts had the most significant impact on the Atlantic Revolutions. As we move into the Industrial Revolution, the steam engine is consistently the "winner" for its sheer transformative power on global society. We ultimately conclude the unit with a March Madness-style bracket, where students debate and defend which social or political reform was the most impactful response to the changes brought about by the era of industry.  

The results are in…Genghis Khan continues his reign as most influential person while antibiotics won the innovation bracket!

This is excellent Anne Koschmider ! Love that you did innovations for one class and people for another. This was what Rachel and I envisioned for the Revolutionary Women activity based on how a former TL/coach organized it in her classroom. I think it would be great to do this in AP for each of the different periodizations (1200-1450; 1450-1750; and 1900-present). Before students move onto the next grouping of units/periods, they would have to decide the winners for that period, then at the end of the year see who might win as the GOAT. Dividing it up into the different periodizations might also help make some of those illustrative examples stick in students' minds a bit better. Also, it would be interesting to see if Genghis Khan would still be the GOAT.

Wait..... this is kind of genius. I'm obsessed with this. But will probably be doing this in several weeks while we review for the AP exam. NOT during March of course. 

I like how these are organized by different time as well. I'm going to try and color code mine a little to make that clearer too. 

Do you have a rough estimate of how long this took you to do during class? 

Also two other things: I think I'm going to try and create a version of this that exists for World Events from history. 

AND, I'm also going to try and assign "seed numbers" to the different inventions that way students feel like there could be upsets. 

I did this a while back with my middle schoolers for influential people from the US or the 13 colonies. .  Most of the 1-seeds advanced (Lincoln, Washington, etc). I do remember Nat Bacon springing a huge upset. LOL

Wayne Zhang I think May Madness could be a great way to review for the AP Exam, or even just have some fun afterward. Also, I love your idea of using historical events! I used to do empires back when the curriculum started so much earlier. 

What criteria are you thinking of using for seed numbers? My bracket placements are admittedly a bit arbitrary.