The Court Surface

MATERIALS NEEDED:

different surfaced tennis courts (Call a local Tennis Club to help you locate at least two different types of surfaces) You can also use the floor of an indoor gym for the hard surface and several local parks will have tennis courts.

tennis rackets and balls

video camera

STEPS TO FOLLOW:

one Discuss with the students the information on the types of playing surfaces and how the bounce of the ball is affected by the surface. Rely on the Teacher Text, background information on our ball/court interaction experiments, on our results of the ball/court interaction test, textbook materials and on other tennis books you check out from the library for the information you will need to give to the students.

two Proceed to the tennis courts and have each student hit at least 10 balls onto the court, observing how the ball bounces. Repeat this process with each student.

three Ask for 5 volunteers to be video taped hitting the balls on the first type of tennis court surface.

four Proceed next to another type of surfaced tennis court. Repeat the exercise of each student hitting at least 10 balls. Have them observe how the balls responds to the surface of the court.

five Ask for 5 more volunteers to be video taped on the second type of tennis court.

six Return to the classroom and view the video tapes. Have a discussion of the experiences of the students hitting the balls on the two types of court surfaces. Ask them for their impressions.

seven Make one large chart for the room with the information on the observances of the students. Be sure to include the types of surfaces that were used, the type of balls that were hit, the kind of rackets that were used, the time of day, and the weather conditions.

eight Display the chart in the classroom, along with access to the video tape for others to view.

Comments? drop tennisnet@cislunar.com a line.
Last modified: Sat Dec 6 21:09:18 PST 1997