A project developed by Cornell College’s KIN-200, Athletes and Activism class.  Authored by Caitlin Babcock, Alec Boldt, Cristian Dixon, Megan Gandrup, Olivia Henkel, MacKenzie Macam, Caitlyne Mar, Kali March, Alexis Partida, Ilah Perez-Johnson, Mary Puffett, Kara Rivard, Julissa Rivera, and Delaney Thomas; edited by Professor Christi Johnson. Because of the power that sports have to shape our understandings of everyday life, we explore the stories of athletes who became activists related to social justice causes.  These athletes used their platforms to advocate for positive social change.  We summarize and share their stories here.  In addition to describing their athletic pursuits, our summaries of their stories include key terms, concepts, and definitions related to socially just causes.  We also include short video overviews of the athletes' sporting lives and social activism. 

Students learn how engineers gather data and model motion using vectors. They learn about using motion-tracking tools to observe, record, and analyze vectors associated with the motion of their own bodies. They do this qualitatively and quantitatively by analyzing several examples of their own body motion. As a final presentation, student teams act as engineering consultants and propose the use of (free) ARK Mirror technology to help sports teams evaluate body mechanics. A pre/post quiz is provided.

Athletes often wear protective gear to keep themselves safe in contact sports. In this spirit, students follow the steps of engineering design process as they design, build and test protective padding for an egg drop. Many of the design considerations surrounding egg drops are similar to sports equipment design. Watching the transformation of energy from potential to kinetic, observing the impact and working under material constraints introduces students to "sports engineering" and gives them a chance to experience some of the challenges engineers face in designing equipment to protect athletes.

What can sports tell us about our relationship to power and resistance? In this audio short, I reflect upon my experience at the Final between Spain and England at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Sydney, Australia and explore how women athletes confront and challenge deeply entrenched gender inequities on and off the playing field.

Imagining themselves arriving at the Olympic gold medal soccer game in Beijing, students begin to think about how engineering is involved in sports. After a discussion of kinetic and potential energy, an associated hands-on activity gives students an opportunity to explore energy absorbing materials as they try to protect an egg from being crushed.

Short Nearpod about how to set effective goals that uses triathlon training as a metaphor for setting effective academic goals.

The lesson begins by introducing Olympics as the unit theme. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to the techniques of engineering problem solving. Specific techniques covered in the lesson include brainstorming and the engineering design process. The importance of thinking out of the box is also stressed to show that while some tasks seem impossible, they can be done. This introduction includes a discussion of the engineering required to build grand, often complex, Olympic event centers.

College athletics are a billion dollar industry. Universities, coaches, the NCAA, and television companies make millions and even billions of dollars a year off the entertainment provided by student athletes. This seminar will examine the controversy surrounding the issue of whether student athletes should be receiving a monetary stipend beyond scholarships. The seminar will allow the student to develop a logical argument on a controversial topic based on facts.StandardsCC.1.2.11–12.DEvaluate how an author’s point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.CC.1.2.11–12.EAnalyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or argument, including whether the structure makes the points clear, convincing, and engaging.

Athletes always try to gain an advantage over their opponent. They work out hard, meticulously watch what they eat, and in some cases take supplements. Some athletes even go to the extreme and take performance enhancing drugs, steroids, known as PED’s. This seminar will provide the learner the ability to acquire and integrate the knowledge of the history of performance enhancing drugs into today's sports world.StandardsCC.1.2.11–12.ADetermine and analyze the relationship between two or more central ideas of a text, including the development and interaction of the central ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.CC.1.2.11–12.BCite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly, as well as inferences and conclusions based on and related to an author’s implicit and explicit assumptions and beliefs.

In this project, you will explore a real-world problem, and then work through a series of steps to analyze that problem, research ways the problem could be solved, then propose a possible solution to that problem. Often, there are no specific right or wrong solutions, but sometimes one particular solution may be better than others. The key is making sure you fully understand the problem, have researched some possible solutions, and have proposed the solution that you can support with information / evidence. Begin by reading the problem statement in Step 1. Take the time to review all the information provided in the statement, including exploring the websites, videos and / or articles that are linked. Then work on steps 2 through 8 to complete this problem-based learning experience.

Football and other sports are supposed to be fun and entertaining.  Professional athletes get paid extremely well for playing a game they love. As with any occupation, however, there is a dark side. These athletes endure injuries that can having lasting effects, some even life threatening. This seminar will provide an in-depth view of athletes who deal with the effects of concussions and some who could not.CC.1.3.9–10.BCite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly, as well as inferences and conclusions based on an author’s explicit assumptions and beliefs about a subject.CC.1.2.11–12.GIntegrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem.

In this lesson, athletics, aesthetics, and poetics intersect in new ways as developing literacy learners experiment together with the forms of language.

Many of today's popular sports are based around the use of balls, yet none of the balls are completely alike. In fact, they are all designed with specific characteristics in mind and are quite varied. Students investigate different balls' abilities to bounce and represent the data they collect graphically.

What does it mean to run while Black? Writers such as Mitchell S. Jackson and Alison Mariella Désir encourage us to reflect upon the intersection between race, running, and embodiment. As a Black runner and Sport Studies scholar, I am also deeply interested in this relationship. In this audio short, I bring listeners with me to a 5K race held on Juneteenth and examine the relationship between running, historical memory, racial trauma, and social action.

The purpose of this class is to tell you something about our Tech Dinghy and how to sail it. This OCW site is arranged as a series of skills, explained both with lecture notes and videos. Please do not think of these skill checks as tests, but instead, as measures of your understanding of our sport. We don’t expect perfection from our beginners, but only that our members be able to safely handle the boats and themselves on the Charles. For those who wish it, there will be much more that can be learned about other boats and other waters, but what can be learned here will provide the basis to build on. For more detail, a text on sailing the Tech Dinghy is provided in the readings section.