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Olympic Cards

Age 5 to 11
Challenge Level Yellow star
  • Game
  • Teachers' Resources

Olympic Cards

Here is some information about $2$ Olympic athletes who have won gold medals:

 


You will find a full set of $24$ cards with information about $24$ different medal winners on these cards. You can print them out and cut them out to play a game with your friends by downloading these sheets.

If you're not sure how to play see here.



You can decide what value to give to the different items that go with each athlete and that may change the winning cards.
How important is the date that the athlete won their medals?
How might you deal with the information about the nationality of the athlete?
How is it shown on the cards?

 

Photograph acknowledgements
  

Why do this problem?

This game/activity can prompt pupils to discuss the various pieces of information and allocate points accordingly. Usually the information is numerical but here we also have the national flag and the year in which the golds were achieved to be considered.

Possible approach

You can print out sets of cards by downloading this file Children can play the game in groups of $2$ to $6$ so you will need an appropriate number of sets of cards for each grpup to have a complete set.
The activity could be introduced by getting the class to compare the information on just two cards, gradually extending this to larger sets of cards.

The pupils need to decide how they rate the value of the flags for each of the countries involved.
You may decide that the children should find out what countries the athletes come from or you may provide them with that information  from here. They may decide that the information about the country of origin isn't relevant to the scoring of the game. They may decide that the most recent results score higher than older results but the discussion will support them in interrogating the data available.


Just in case you or your pupils do not know how to play the game then here are some instructions:

  • Any number of pupils can play.
  • Deal out the cards.
  • Pupils hold their cards so that others cannot see them but in a stack so that they can only see their top card.
  • The pupil who starts chooses one piece of information from their top card.
  • The other pupils read out the same piece of information from their top card.
  • The pupils with the best (most, highest . . . etc) card wins and gains all those top cards from the other pupils and places them at the bottom of their own stack.
  • That winner starts the next round.
     

Key questions

How did you decide about the "value"of the flags/countries?
What further information would be good to use?
 

Possible support

If the children find it difficult to work with all the information on the cards, they could focus on one aspect at a time.

Possible extension

The children could create more cards of their own.

Photographic Acknowledgements:
Asafa Powell  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Powell_2010-06-04_Bislett_Games_06.jpg/200px-Powell_2010-06-04_Bislett_Games_06.jpg
David Neville http://www.topnews.in/sports/files/images/David-Neville.jpeg
Florence Griffiths-Joyner http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/womenenc/FLOJO_2.JPG
Jeremy Wariner http://www.jamesnava.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/jeremy-wariner.jpg
Kenny Harrison http://0.tqn.com/d/trackandfield/1/G/V/0/-/-/main-KennyHarrison.jpg
LAShawn Merritt http://mankindunplugged.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/LaShawnMerritt.jpg
Michael Johson http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1ZDXUUzQ9hY/TKtFXXoviMI/AAAAAAAADHk/uXllvf4GMq8/s1600/MichaelJohnson2.jpg
Michael Frater http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01365/frater_13_280x390_1365739a.jpg
Nesta Carter http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Nesta+Carter+Aziz+Zakari+13th+IAAF+World+Athletics+7pyYFTYj_ral.jpg
Samuel Wanjiru http://www.amref.org/silo/images/samuel-wanjiru_205x290.jpg
Usain Bolt http://images.suite101.com/3209686_com_usain_bolt.jpg
Yelena Isinbayeva http://www.athleticsnews.net/images/yelena-isinbayeva12.jpg
Yelena Slesarenko http://www2.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Olympics+Day+15+Athletics+fZKjoLv6BYQl.jpg
Francina Blanker-Koen http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1076779976116_2004/02/17/350_fannyblankerskoen.jpg
Marie-Jose Perec http://www.olympic.org/Assets/MediaPlayer/Photos/1996/07/29/WAAAB024/WAAAB024_HD.jpg
Tonique Williams-Darling http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200603/r74852_210663.jpg
Hildegard Falck http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/81355087.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF8789215ABF3343C02EA548B15CEDE4A8E932E22D86374B926B47DB6C99C9F73E871ACE
Doina Besliu-Melinte http://www.olympic.org/Assets/MediaPlayer/Photos/Vancouver/Semaine_18oct%231/SPEED%20SKATING/02-M_1500m_Mark_Tuitert_NED_G-960.jpg
Hasely Crawford http://www.bestoftrinidad.com/olympics/crawford5.jpg
Valeriy Borzov http://i.ytimg.com/vi/73JPTcAZN64/0.jpg
Livio Berruti http://www.puntosport.net/puntosport-incorso/images/Image/Speciali/Intramontabili/Foto%20Intramontabili%20small/Berruti_roma60.jpg
Konstantinos Kenteris http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hE0TRpE-p8U/SLrk37Y_bfI/AAAAAAAAJs4/TLzdqk1WKdc/s400/Kostas+Kenteris+1.jpg
Annegret Richter http://www.sporting-heroes.net/content/thumbnails/00098/09686-zoom.jpg


 

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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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