Goal! World Cup Soccer Craze and Content for the Classroom

The 2010 World Cup Soccer Tournament has gained widespread attention and remarkable viewership from around the world. Hosted this year in South Africa, the popular event has generated a kind of hype that can be comparable to the Super Bowl or World Series, but with an international twist.  FIFA (the Federation Internationale de Football Association) is the governing body of international football (what Americans refer to as soccer) and represents 32 teams which represent countries from all around the globe.

From a lesson plan perspective, the World Cup is an event ripe with activities and lessons that span the palette of academic subjects. With 32 countries involved in FIFA, it is easy to see that geography and world history lessons can be derived. Math and economics lessons can be created from the audience viewership statistics, ticket sales, jobs created, dollars spent, prize money, and goal kicks that take place during the games. Even science and geometry lessons can be generated from doing research on the aerodynamics, shape, and polyurethane material of the soccer ball.  

These next few, standards-aligned lessons will kick-start your class, and keep them current with the World Cup. By using these lessons, and suggested guidelines, your instructional time will be filled and your students will have the opportunity to be engaged in learning . . . and when that is achieved, you have definitely scored a “goal!”

World Cup Lessons – More than Fun and Games:

European Soccer – History, Math and Language Arts

This lesson is designed to explore the cultural influence the World Cup has had on the country of Germany. Students read a New York Times article online and then answer questions. Although cut and dry, some of the questions can be used for the construction of math problems. Questions from the lesson such as: How many people watch the World Cup world-wide? How does this compare to the number of people who watch the Super Bowl or the World Series? How does this compare to the numbers of people who watched the 2006 Winter Olympics? , can be converted into equations and students can then create graphs and charts to represent this information. You can have students work in Excel software to cover technology standards, and for language arts, students can write a compare/contrast essay based on some of the questions presented.

Soccer Balls, Footballs, and Spheres

Designing their own soccer ball through with the use of volume formulas and shapes, and using proportions and measurements are the standards and objectives that are covered during this lesson. Although this particular lesson focuses on package design, the same activities can be applied to any three dimensional shape, including the soccer ball. Students also learn spatial relationships and 3-D modeling, which is beneficial for several of today’s contemporary fields like animation, engineering, and architectural design.

Earth Science and  World Cup Territory

Students create a topographical map in this lesson, and are asked to research the geological layout of the region. They are asked to calculate the slopes of the terrain as they create their own two-dimensional model. I would also have students look at a continental map and have them label the countries that are represented in the FIFA. Students could then incorporate language arts standards by writing a research report about the terrain of those particular regions. By combining all of this information, students could then create a multi-media PowerPoint that displays all of the statistics and information collected during this lesson.