Fun with - and on - Pi Day, 3/14
It started with measuring the circumference of an Oreo cookie. It ended in a celebration featuring a lot of pie.
Monday was Pi Day at Wapakoneta Middle School, where the seventh-grade math students spent some time doing tasks created to have a little fun — on and with 3.14.
The number pi is a mathematical constant, approximately equal to 3.14159. It is defined in Euclidean geometry as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, and also has various equivalent definitions. It appears in many formulas in all areas of mathematics and physics. If that sounds like Greek to you, you should know that the earliest known use of the Greek letter π to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was by the Welsh mathematician William Jones in 1706; it is also referred to as Archimedes's constant.
Monday’s WMS activities weren’t that complicated, although a contest to see who could recite pi to the highest decimal ended after 67 digits were listed correctly.
“The seventh grade has the content standard for working with circles, measuring area and circumference,” said Joni Wade, a seventh-grade teacher. “So it all fits together.”
Other activities including figuring the circumference of two pizza specials to determine which was the better deal, using 3.14 to justify calculations and using pixel art to unveil a hidden picture.
Students gathered in the cafeteria to end their day sharing real pies, which many of them brought in to share with their teachers and classmates.