Basketball Court Orienteering

One sentence activity description

"Activator: what to say in the beginning to engage the participants and communicate the goal"

Time and Space

20-30 minutes

Materials and Set-up

Maps, answer key, checkpoint cones

Vocabulary

Map reading, route choice, speed, agility

Summary

Participants use a map of a basketball court to find specific checkpoints. This activity practices map orientation, direction, and route choice. Maps showing the lines of the basketball court are used, and checkpoints are located around the basketball court on these lines. The activity can be conducted with several levels of difficulty. The easiest level is standard point-to-point orienteering; this progresses to restricting participant movements so they can only move along the lines of the court; and the final challenge is to add “roadblocks” along those lines so participants must consider alternate route choices to get from one checkpoint to the next.

O Goals

Orienteering involves making connections between maps and reality, and identifying the best way to get from one location to another.

• Orienting the map

• Map reading

• Route choice

• Relative position

• Agility

Standards

Target Audience

This activity targets those who are ready to learn basic maps, up to elite athletes. Typically the youngest participants are in 2nd grade (~7 years old). Depending on the ability level of the participants, variations can be used to make the activity easier/harder.

Delivery

Set-up and Clean-up

Provide diagrams, time needed, and how you can have the participants help with this (eg in delivering to a class where the teacher does not have extra time to set up)

Step-by-step

1. Tell the participants they will be orienteering on a basketball court today. In order to complete these courses, they must move along the lines of the basketball court at all times. They are not allowed to step off the lines, or jump from one line to another. The goal is to find the shortest path between each checkpoint on the course, and complete each course as quickly as possible.

2. Pass out SI cards to each participant. If possible, record which SI card each participant received. Remind participants they must keep the SI card with them throughout the entire activity.

3. Explain the rules of Basketball-O

4. Participants must remain on the lines of the court at all times.

5. No one is allowed to jump from one line to another. You must always follow a continuous line from one checkpoint to the next.

6. Checkpoints must be visited in order.

7. If participants encounter one another moving in opposite directions along the same line, they should each take one step off the line to their right, and then continue moving along once they've passed each other safely.

8. Once participants understand the rules, pass out the maps. Start participants with the shortest and simplest maps.

9. As participants complete courses, they may move on to more challenging maps, or repeat a previous course to beat their time.

Sample script

“Your challenge in this activity is to orient the map to the lines of the basketball court and use them to find your checkpoints.

“Looking at the map, does everyone see the big half-circle, nearly as wide as the entire court (point out the 3-point line on the map)? Now does everyone see the big half-circle in real life, too (point out the 3-point line in real life)?”

Point to a checkpoint on the map. “Can anyone tell me where this checkpoint is on the court by looking at the lines? How do you know that’s the correct checkpoint?

“Here’s another way to figure it out. If my map is oriented, and we are currently standing here (point out where you are currently standing), then the checkpoint should be in that direction.” Show how it is in the same direction on the map as real life.

Assessment

Reflection

What was easy or challenging about using a map of the basketball court?

How did you plan the best way to get from one checkpoint to the next?

How could you tell if a checkpoint was in the correct place?

Reaching all learners

Variations

• Pacman-O

  • Identify one or two participants to be ghosts (taggers) for this activity.

  • The ghosts can only walk, and are attempting to tag the other participants as they run their courses.

  • Ghosts must also remain on the lines at all times.

  • If a participant is tagged, they must clear their SI card, and retry the course they were running.

• Roadblocks

  • For this variation, you will need several small cones, or other objects that can be placed over the lines of the basketball court. Place the cones over the lines of the court, but make sure it is always possible to access every cone without having to pass over a cone. Participants may not pass over the cones as they run. If they encounter a cone, they must stop and go another direction.

Supporting Information

This may include mapping to learning standards, tags, maps and other materials