IDS News

Pi Day Comes 'Round Again
By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 21, 2008

Noelle Keith 14, takes a conservative approach to the pie-eating contest at Independent Day School. The school had a day to celebrate all things pi. The students participated in pi-related crafts, pie-eating and pie-throwing.

CARROLLWOOD - Tiani Clarke-Royal bounced on her toes as she rattled off the numbers.

The first 28 numbers that make up pi - the irrational number that reflects the relationship between a circle's diameter and circumference - come fairly quickly. But the seventh-grader has to talk through the next string she had memorized.

"Two, seven? OK. And then nine, five. Is that next? Nine, five, oh, two ... eight, eight, four, one, nine, seven? OK, one, six, nine, three, four, nine?" Tiani said.

It didn't sound right. She bounced higher.

"I got it, I got it - one, six, nine, three, nine, nine," she said. "I knew that."

Tiani and her middle school classmates at Independent Day School had pi - and pie - on the brain last week. Their math class lessons took to the outdoors March 14, dubbed "Pi Day."

Huh?

"It's March 14 - 3/14," sixth-grader Lindsay Pearl said.

The private school has celebrated Pi Day for about a decade. The first year started with singing happy birthday to Albert Einstein, who was born March 14, and the school has added activities - some fun and some academic - in the years since.

"We try to make it more fun and hands-on and real for them," said math teacher Tom Bronson.

In class, the students had measured circular objects and discovered for themselves that pi recurred in their calculations. Though abbreviated as 3.14., pi's digits continue endlessly and do not follow a pattern, making it tough for students to comprehend.

On Pi Day, they saw what the figure might look like. Students made necklaces and bracelets, with each bead a different color to represent pi's digits. They built pi out of a paper chain.

Another classroom offered up pi-related word searches and pi haiku. Outside, Tiani and other students tested their memories. Tiani, 13, had memorized the first 30 digits of pi in class the day before. At home, she worked on more, in groups of four. She reached 70 before stopping.

She can't remember song lyrics, she said, but she had pi down.

Pi Day also offered a scavenger hunt, a beanbag toss and art. Some students plunged into a pie-eating contest, while others elected to buy a slice at a pie sale.

When it was over, the students who had participated in the most activities were rewarded with a chance to toss a pie at their teacher.

Bronson stood before a line of students armed with pie plates. They took turns hurling them, and some whizzed by.

"I felt the wind," Bronson yelled.

Others smacked on his head, his knee, his chest.

He didn't mind a face full of pie in the name of math, especially now that the school used whipped cream instead of shaving cream. Shaving cream stings the eyes, he said.

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503 or cpastor@tampatrib.com

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