What is the ratio of a circular, delicious pie’s circumference to its diameter? Since today is “Pi Day,” or March 14, it’s a great time to find out.
Pi is approximately 3.14159..., so math and pie aficionados celebrate the study of mathematics on the 14th of March. The day was designated by House Resolution 224 in 2009.
Here are a few classroom activities to help explain pi:
- For a list of Pi books, check out my colleague Helen Yoshida’s post on BookMarks.
- PBS Learning Media recently launched a collection of free math resources for educators.
- Edutopia has a list of seven resources for pi learning.
- Share a musical interpretation of pi, up to 31 decimal places, with students.
- Watch Parker Middle School’s parody of “What Does the Fox Say?”, titled “What Is the Value of Pi?”
Some communities have large celebrations for Pi Day, like Princeton University’s three-day event dedicated to the irrational number, complete with music, a pie-eating contest, and a tour of Albert Einstein’s neighborhood (Einstein was born on Pi Day and lived in Princeton, N.J.).
Find more ways people celebrated the day by following #piday or #piday2014 on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms.
If you missed the celebration, there’s always next year’s Pi Day, which is extra special since it falls on 3/14/15—and the first few digits of pi are 3.1415.
Here’s a roundup of this year’s Pi Day celebrations from Twitter.