March 14 is known as ‘Pi Day’ in honour of the mathematical equation referring to the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Pi-Day is celebrated all around the world, a special language has been created based on the digits of this irrational number. NASA has activities for GCSE students, demonstrating how Pi is helping us to gain more understanding about the world around us.
Here at Croydon College, students from a wide range of courses joined in with a series of fun activities in room F420 to mark Pi Day and raise the profile of maths across the college at all levels. Students started with quizzes linking maths to English. For example, students had a task to create a sentence on ‘Polish’ language. They came up with sentences such as: “How I wish I could calculate pi inside three hour(s)!” (3.141592654) or “May I have a phone including an orange?” (3.1415926)
There were card matching activities, memory games, measuring the value of π by using different circles. Measuring the circumference and the diameter of the circle, students worked out the value of pi themselves with an excellent accuracy in some cases.
At the end, students were asked to memorise the digits of Pi, and put the cards with separate digits in order. Our students were absolutely amazing! During this activity Adira Adeosun was outstanding as she was able to recall the first 25 digits of pi! That is: 3.141592653589793238462643
In addition, supported education students offered pies with their Better Brew and were able to remind staff members of the significance of Pi.
Valeria Panyko, GCSE maths coordinator, said: “We had an infinite good time, and hopefully everyone likes circles more, and they will remember how to work out the area and the circumference of the circle in their fast-approaching exams.”
