NBA AND DISCOVERY EDUCATION TEAM UP TO PROVIDE EDUCATORS NEW DIGITAL RESOURCES TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN MATH Chantal Romain, NBA201-772-8939, CRomain@nba.com Dara Klatt, Discovery Education 202-607-4450, Dara_Klatt@discovery.com — NBA Game Footage and Statistics Added to Award-Winning Math Techbook To Bring Concepts to Life for Middle and High School Students — — Initiative Announced with Washington Wizards & Mystics, NBA Legends During Jr. NBA Clinic at John Hayden Johnson Middle School in Washington, D.C. — NEW YORK & SILVER SPRING, Md. [Nov. 18, 2016] – 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 will deepen middle and high school students’ engagement in mathematics nationwide. In this new collaboration, which harnesses students’ interest in professional basketball to help teach important mathematics concepts, interactive math problems derived from NBA and WNBA game footage and statistics such as points, rebounds, assists and more, have been integrated into Discovery Education’s Math Techbook™. The latest addition to Discovery Education’s award-winning line of digital textbooks, the Math Techbook transforms the way students and teachers experience math through engaging instructional strategies and real-world problems that motivate and excite students with diverse learning styles. More than 3 million students across all 50 states and several Canadian provinces have access to the 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; NBA legend and NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations Kiki VanDeWeghe. The Jr. NBA is the league’s youth basketball participation program for boys and girls ages 6-14 which teaches the fundamental skills as well as the core values of the game. At today’s event, participating students competed to solve NBA math problems and tested their shooting, passing, and dribbling skills during an oncourt clinic. Click here to download hi-res images: https://we.tl/OSHEizG04b “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.” Developed by Discovery Education’s team of expert math educators with the input of teachers and administrators from across the country, Discovery Education’s Techbooks are digital textbooks that support a comprehensive curriculum and are updated regularly at no cost. The Math Techbook engages students with real world problems worth solving, and can be accessed on any device, anywhere, anytime in any instructional setting. In addition to dynamic, standards-aligned content, interactives, videos, and game-like activities that increase students’ motivation to learn math, Math Techbook includes useful student tools such as a graphing calculator, a geometry tool, a whiteboard tool, and a matrix solver. A Student Dashboard embedded within the Math Techbook helps students track their individual progress and take responsibility for their learning. Technology enhanced items and formative assessments are woven throughout the entire instructional cycle, and teachers have a data dashboard that helps them monitor student progress. 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. For example, to teach students about variables, equations, and weighted averages, educators can challenge students to predict who will be chosen for the All-NBA Teams by creating formulas based on available statistics. Other problems ask students to use proportions to predict how many assists a player is on track to have by the end of the season; create probability models to show how likely players are to make 2 point or 3 point shots; or calculate the timing of a slam-dunk takeoff. "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!" Discovery Education understands that teacher engagement is critical to implementing successful learning initiatives. Therefore, all Techbooks include research-based professional development that supports educators as they integrate new digital content and resources into classroom instruction. The Discovery Education Community, a global community of education professionals, further connects teachers and administrators around the world with social media, virtual conferences, and in-person events that inspire innovation and facilitates idea sharing. "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. NBAThe 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 EducationDiscovery 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.