NBA And Discovery Education Team Up On New Interactive NBA Math Problems For Digital Math Techbook™ Experience

NEW YORK and SILVER SPRING, Md., Nov. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Discovery Education, the leading provider of digital education content and professional development for K-12 classrooms, today launched a new multi-year partnership that deepens middle and high school students' engagement in mathematics nationwide by combining the passion for professional basketball with key math concepts.  The collaboration includes interactive math problems derived from NBA and WNBA game footage and statistics such as points, rebounds and assists, which have been integrated into Discovery Education's  Math Techbook™, a digital textbook that transforms the way students and teachers experience math through real-world problems.  More than 3 million students across all 50 states and several Canadian provinces have access to the Discovery Education Techbook series.

This announcement was made during a Jr. NBA clinic at John Hayden Johnson Middle School in Washington, D.C. (District of Columbia Public Schools), with special NBA and WNBA guests including Washington Wizards forward Daniel Ochefu; Washington Mystics point guard Ivory Latta; Washington Wizards legends Phil Chenier and Etan Thomas; Hall of Famer and NBA Cares Ambassador Bob Lanier; NBA legend and NBA Cares Ambassador Felipe Lopez; and NBA legend and NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations Kiki VanDeWeghe.  The Jr. NBA is the league's youth basketball participation program that teaches the fundamental skills and core values of the game to boys and girls ages 6-14.  At today's event, participating students competed to solve NBA math problems and tested their shooting, passing and dribbling skills during an oncourt clinic.

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"We are proud to partner with Discovery Education to bring the excitement of the NBA, its teams and players directly to students in classrooms around the country," said NBA Senior Vice President, Social Responsibility Todd Jacobson. "Basketball can be a powerful learning tool and these interactive math problems around the game will engage students in fun, creative ways."

With math naturally prevalent throughout the game of basketball, interactive NBA Apply problems in Discovery Education's Math Techbook leverage students' interest in basketball to help teach a wide range of mathematical concepts around their favorite players and teams.  The NBA Math Tool allows students to create their own formulas and visualize math concepts through histograms, scatter plots and box plots using NBA and WNBA statistical categories such as points, rebounds, steals, assists and blocks.

"The launch event is going to jump-start our students' enthusiasm for math by making it relevant to their interests," said John Hayden Johnson Middle School Principal Courtney Taylor. "I'm thrilled to see our students deeply engaged in their learning through the context of basketball with Discovery Education and the NBA!"

Supporting any device, anywhere, anytime, Math Techbook motivates and excites students with diverse learning styles. It includes standards-aligned content, interactives, videos and game-like activities, with useful student tools such as a graphing calculator, a geometry tool, a whiteboard tool and a matrix solver, as well as a Student Dashboard to track a student's individual progress.  It is the latest addition to Discovery Education's award-winning line of digital textbooks and was developed by Discovery Education's team of expert math educators with the input of teachers and administrators from across the country.

"We know that sports are a great way to excite and motivate young learners, especially in critical areas such as math and science," said Discovery Education President and CEO Bill Goodwyn. "We applaud the NBA and WNBA's leadership in bringing the real world into classrooms and empowering kids to solve problems by building their core STEM competencies."

For more information about the partnership, please visit: DiscoveryEducation.com/NBAMath.

About the Jr. NBA

The Jr. NBA is the league's youth basketball participation program that teaches the fundamental skills as well as the core values of the game at the grassroots level in an effort to help grow and improve the youth basketball experience for players, coaches and parents.  Through a network of affiliated youth basketball organizations, live events and interactive experiences, the Jr. NBA will reach five million youth ages 6-14 in the U.S. and Canada over a two-year period as part of its expanded efforts launched in October 2015.  The Jr. NBA partnership network is comprised of youth basketball programs of all NBA, WNBA and NBA Development League teams as well as elementary and middle schools, military installations and longstanding community partners, including Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Jewish Community Centers of North America, National Association of Police Athletic Leagues, National Recreation and Park Association, National Wheelchair Basketball Association, Special Olympics, and YMCA of the USA.

About Discovery Education

Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-based digital content for K-12, transforming teaching and learning with award-winning digital textbooks, multimedia content, professional development, and the largest professional learning community of its kind. Serving 4.5 million educators and over 50 million students, Discovery Education's services are in half of U.S. classrooms, 50 percent of all primary schools in the UK, and more than 50 countries. Discovery Education partners with districts, states and like-minded organizations to captivate students, empower teachers, and transform classrooms with customized solutions that increase academic achievement. Discovery Education is powered by Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK), the number one nonfiction media company in the world. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.

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SOURCE Discovery Education