March 14th (3/14) : Pi Day

Today we celebrate math, focusing on what Pi is. We started off with a challenge of figuring out how much fencing in needed to fence a circular garden. Although many good strategies were used, even putting a string around the circle still produced answers that were not quite correct, as the string kept slipping as they measured. Putting this aside until the end of the day, we read a story book that helps students remember what diameter, radius, and circumference definitions are. Using this, we reversed the formula for finding circumference and instead tried to use it to find pi. Student groups measured the circumference and diameter of a variety of pizza "pies" in class then used calculators to see what happens when you divide circumference by diameter. Low and behold, our answers all produced numbers right around 3. Finding the class average, we ended with 3.13. Taking this further we discussed that the circumference is about 3 times the diameter, as this is what it showed us. In fact, it was taught we can get closer and it is about 3.14 times the diameter. The rest of the day will focus on extending this and using the formula Circumference= pi / diameter to solve problems. A challenge will occur to have students try to memorize as many numbers of the irrational number pi for a grade-wide contest on Thursday. We will read about how mathematicians came about to discovering pi, following the math of ancient Babylonians. Finally, we will end with completing the challenge of the circular garden again, but this time using the formula to see how much easier and accurate it is. Happy Pi Day!