March Mammal Madness

The official home for March Mammal Madness tournament information and resources! If you're learning, you're winning!

Get hyped

Logos and hype materials (folder)
Spotify playlist: March Mammal Madness
Student certificates
Collector Trading Cards by Ian Hecht (folder)
Compendium of the 12th annual March Mammal Madness 2024 Tournament
Compilation of all of the Read All About zines for each match of the 2024 MMM tournament, tournament highlights, usage data, and educator contributions.
Video: Inside the MMM Tournament
Video with a behind the scenes explanation about how winners are determined and the battle play-by-plays crafted.
Video: MMMaximizing Educational Impact
Video with specific info for Educators to maximize the educational opportunities of March Mammal Madness.
March Mammal Madness eLife Publication
Metazoa
"The animal kingdom (Metazoa, in Greek) is full of our distant relatives... some more distant than others! Metazooa is a game that tests how well you know our extended family tree."
Animordle
Wordle for Animals for the month of March! Animordle was created by friends of the MMM tournament JT Miller of St. Albans School and Sean Nolan of the Landon School. Note: Only available during the month of March.

Online bracket scorers

Back by popular demand, Mr. Jeff Brunstrum’s contest manager!

The contest manager can be copied and then be used by teachers to track student scores on their bracket selections. MMM strongly emphasizes that students should be graded on participation, aspects of combatant research, arguing from evidence, and other classrooMMM activities, but students should never be graded on how well their bracket scores in the tournament.

Self-scoring tournament bracket
This will allow participants to have a digital MMM bracket of their picks that will automatically update and score their selections as the tournament goes on. If you are looking to run a MMM pool this will also give a convenient way for players to enter their bracket submissions and the pool manager can use the digital pool manager sheet to automatically score up to 40 entries and keep updated standings throughout the tournament.
Contest manager
This template allows a bracket pool manager to run a pool using Google Sheets. The pool manager can use this sheet to automatically score up to 40 entries and keep updated standings throughout the tournament.
Contest manager video directions
This video goes over some of the common mistakes that are made importing contestant data. Three cheers for Mr. Brunstrum!

Is your MMM contest bigger than just one class?

Large contest manager
Intended to be able to automatically score up to 400 entries and keep updated standings. This manager may get slow and laggy with large amounts of entries, but it should work.
MMM Pools by Round: from engaged Grandpa to Bracketologist Extraordinaire!
March Mammal Madness Pick'em Pool! Back for 2025! After his grandkid showed him the 2023 bracket, Grandpa PoolsByRound expanded his website for the Mammal Madness. Check it out!
MMMBrackets: from Learner to Bracketologist Extraordinaire!
Now open to everyone!

Example play by plays

2019MMM: Nimravid vs. Tiger Quoll
Narration of the CAT-e-Gory Round 2 encounter between #2 Nimravid and #7 Tiger Quoll, by Katie Hinde and Patrice K. Connors.
2019MMM: Jackrabbit vs. Springhare
Narration of the Jump Around Round 1 encounter between #8 Springhare and #9 Jackrabbit by Jessica Light.
2018MMM: Berlin Boar vs Bobcat
Narration of the Urban Jungle Round 2 encounter between #3 Berlin Boar and #6 Bobcat, by Katie Hinde, Jessica Light, Mauna Dasari, and Anne W. Hilborn
2018MMM: Harar Hyena vs. Coyote
Narration of the Urban Jungle Sweet Sixteen encounter between #1 Harar Hyena and #7 Coyote, by Katie Hinde, Tara Chestnut, and Anne W. Hilborn
2018-2021 Sports-style summaries
Since 2018, MMM team members have written sport-style summaries following the live "play-by-play" narration of simulated combatant encounters on social media.

Other resources for educators

USGS Science Resources for Teachers
Science information for K-12 grades and college level, including classroom lessons.
PBS Learning Media
Developed by PBS, this resource gives K-12 students a place to access trusted content for homework support.
TimeTree
TimeTree is a public knowledge-base for information on the evolutionary timescale of life. Data from thousands of published studies are assembled into a searchable tree of life scaled to time.
Sketchfab 3D models
A collection of public domain cultural heritage 3D models, including from the Smithsonian Institution, Western Science Center, Denmark's Digital Archive of Natural History, The Digital Atlas of Ancient Life at the Paleontological Research Institution and many more.
National Geographic Photo Ark
Photo Ark founder Joel Sartore has photographed more than 9,000 species around the world as part of a multiyear effort to document every species living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries, inspire action through education, and help save wildlife by supporting on-the-ground conservation efforts.
CornellLab K-12 Education
Developed for K-12 education by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It encourages kids to engage with the curriculum and develop their own questions using the scientific process.
Smithsonian Learning Lab
The Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access created the Smithsonian Learning Lab to inspire the discovery and creative use of its rich digital materials—more than a million images, recordings, and texts.
National Center for Science Education Classroom Resources
The National Center for Science Education equips teachers with the knowledge and resources they need to accurately teach evolution, climate change, and the nature of science.
Smithsonian Human Origins Education
Education materials related to Human Origins from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Explore a multitude of digital assets including scientific research and findings, interactive content and education resources.
How to College
Welcome to Crash Course: How to College! This 15 episode series is part of the Study Hall Program; a partnership between Crash Course and ASU. Dr. Erica Brozovsky (from PBS's Otherwords) hosts and breaks down how to apply for, succeed at and graduate from college.