Wild Showdowns: Science classes participated in the March Mammal Madness competition for more interesting extra credit opportunities

Forest elephant vs honey bee. 

For most, the answer is obvious — the elephant has the easy victory. But junior Mallory Wilkerson decided to take the risk and side with the bee for one of the first rounds in her biology class’s annual March Mammal Madness competition.

Her hunch turned out to be right — the buzzing black and yellow bug upset the elephant, destroying other students’ brackets. It then went on to defeat the Flame Bowerbird in the second round but eventually was beaten by the Great White shark, who ultimately was the March Mammal Madness champion. Wilkerson ended up winning the tournament in her IB Biology class with 82 points out of the possible perfect bracket of 138 points.

March Mammal Madness is inspired by college basketball’s March Madness Tournament and simulates hypothetical battles between animals in different habitats. The elephant vs. bee battle wasn’t the only upset. According to science teacher Stephanie Valencia, upsets happen often because the battles are not always a fight to the death, sometimes the winner “wins” by causing its opponent to run away, or sometimes a powerful animal doesn’t attack because it is not motivated to. 

“I did get into it and I looked up every single animal, and how the weird battlefields worked or whatever the habitat was,” Wilkerson said. “Most of it was just applying some logic but [the March Mammal Madness tournament] was a fun and easy way to get some extra credit.”

Valencia and Davis started doing the competition in their classes about five years ago after they learned about it through a biology Facebook group.

The students also participate in the competition because it relates to the work they’ve done while learning about ecology in class. Participating in the competition allows students to see how organisms interact with each other and the adaptations they have developed allowing them to survive.

“I think it’s really important for them to see just what adaptations organisms have,” Davis said. “ A lot of times they don’t even know all the organisms so it shows them  all the diversity there is out there.”

Students in Honors Biology can earn extra credit from the competition by answering a different scientific question every week but during March, Valencia and Davis offer their students extra credit for their brackets. The extra points differ between classes but extra credit is given for meeting certain point thresholds, getting the highest score in the class winners, and being an overall winner.

Both teachers plan to continue doing the tournament next year and the years to follow. 

“It’s just a fun way to get extra credit differently than what we did with the questions constantly all the time,” Davis said. “It’s fun for students because it’s right around the time that basketball March Madness is going on, and they get to think it’s about how completely different animals battle each other.”