Celebrating the irrational and infinite is as easy as pi at Waikoloa School.
Nearly 190 middle school students spent Friday honoring a favorite mathematical constant that begins 3.141592653 and is known more commonly as 3.14. Pi is the ratio one gets when dividing the circumference of a circle by its diameter. It can’t be expressed as a fraction, and as an irrational number, its digits never end. Since pi goes on forever, its exact value to the last decimal point can’t be calculated.
For Pi Day, the students participated in a myriad of activities, from “pi-ku” writing, door decorating and competing in a pi memorization contest to lawn games, musical performances and lining up all digits of pi on the field. And of course, they ate pie.
A trio of judges wearing capes with the Greek letter “π” were tasked with deciding the winners of the various contests. Inside the library Friday morning, they listened to pi-ku after pi-ku, checking to make sure the three-line poem had five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five in the third. Among their favorites was this Shel Silverstein-esque one:
Hello pi, bye pi
Pi is three point one four
Goodbye pi, goodbye
The all-day festivities were planned by sixth-grade advisory teachers Jordan Braschler, Sylvie Bright, Dana Goya and Alice Mulligan. Students raised about $300 to cover the event’s costs by selling drinks and snacks donated by parents.
Many students decided to geek out by dressing like a nerd. Acting like a nerd and rejoicing about math were also acceptable.
Mulligan said the event was a way to engage students and deepen their knowledge about pi while encouraging the study of math, helping them see real-world connections and garnering more appreciation for the subject. It was also an opportunity to incorporate some fun.
Pi Day is an annual international, math-focused celebration that’s always observed March 14 because it’s the first three digits of pi. It’s also happens to be German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein’s birthday. Another bonus was this Friday happened to be the last day before spring break for the students.
Pi Day became an official national holiday in 2009, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution. However, it was first celebrated in 1988 at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, where physicist Larry Shaw and his colleagues oversaw pi recitations and people enjoying pie.
Sixth-grader Brock Williams, 12, said math is his second favorite subject so it felt great to have an entire day devoted to the subject. He thinks calculating pi does have its uses, particularly for determining lengths, areas and volumes of objects such as circles, spheres, cylinders and cones. All of these calculations, he added, will be especially important as he plans to pursue a career in engineering.
Sixth-grader Alilah Solis thinks it’s important to know, understand and master math because working with numbers is a part of daily life. The 11-year-old girl liked how Pi Day proved to her peers that math doesn’t have to be boring. It can be challenging and fun, she added.