February 28, 2023
The simulated animal tournament at ASU returns with a community of learners over 660,000 strong
The world’s most popular simulated animal tournament is back for another year of exciting matchups.
March Mammal Madness, which was established in 2013, celebrated a decade of science education, innovation and impact during a virtual event held on Feb. 16.
The event featured Katie Hinde, associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the Center for Evolution and Medicine at Arizona State University, and Anali Maughan Perry, head of Open Science and Scholarly Communication at ASU Library.
Hinde, who has continued to serve as March Mammal Madness editor in chief of a team of scientists, illustrators, conservationists, librarians, designers and educators, joined Perry to kick off this year’s tournament, which runs from March 13–April 5, with stories from the past decade and what players could look forward to this year.
Perry said that in 2016 she began following the tournament on Twitter after seeing scientists share articles and resources about different animals.
“There are so many things to love about March Mammal Madness,” Perry said. “I love animals. I love games. I love science, I like communicating.”
But she noticed that many of the links being shared were inaccessible behind paywalls or on platforms often blocked by K–12 schools.
“We needed to find ways of sharing resources that would be accessible to everybody, even if they weren't at an academic institution,” Perry said. “Having a resource that had a dot edu URL would make it a lot easier for educators to engage and visit.”
Soon after, a partnership with the ASU Library was formed to create the March Mammal Madness LibGuide.
Library guides, or “LibGuides” for short, are a platform used all over the world, where libraries can gather lists of resources in an organized and friendly way. Out of the more than 750,000 LibGuides in the world, March Mammal Madness is the 32nd most popular. The screen-reader compatible March Mammal Madness LibGuide provides everything you need to participate in the tournament, including videos, science resources, archived tweets and nightly matchup summaries.
Launching the 2023 tournament
More than 6,600 educators have already signed up to play in the March Mammal Madness tournament, and will have access to materials that will reach more than 660,000 learners.
The 2023 bracket dropped on Feb. 21 and features animals such as a golden eagle, a sea otter and Darwin’s frog.
For newcomers to the tournament, the saying is, “The mammals are the mammals and the nonmammals are the madness,” Hinde said.
The 2023 tournament includes a redesign of the LibGuide. Different portals break down the tournament by audience to help educators find the resources that are most appropriate for their corresponding age group. There are now areas for high school, college, middle school and K–5 students, and areas for families and homeschool groups.
“Now you can click to the portal that is most relevant for you,” Hinde said.