Pi Day, what sort of ideas?
March 7, 2008 am31 7:20 am
My principal asked me today if we should do something for Pi Day, and I replied that I was never a Pi Day fan. (but if I didn’t do enough cutesy stuff in the classroom, he should tell me. No, he replied, I am plenty cutesie.)
But just now I noticed that H at Coffee and Graph Paper asked other math teacher bloggers to ask for Pi Day ideas, so here goes: What good stuff could you do with an Algebra I class on Pi Day? Have you actually tried any of this?
There is a current discussion on the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State listserve, here.
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JD2718 
3/14 is also “talk like a physicist day.”
A whole day where I don’t have to change “given that” to “considering that” in all my non-nerd e-mail…
How about looking at the music of Pi:
Oooh – how about a discussion of the time when the House of Representatives was seeking to legislate the value of pi?
http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/Localgov/Second%20Level%20pages/Indiana_Pi_Story.htm
I’m on a roll now :)
You have inspired me to wrote a post on this – and also an offer. If anyone has any ideas for Pi-Day demonstrations that could be included in the wolfram demonstration project then I will have a go at writing them for you.
Note – I am not a Wolfram employee – I just love their project.
@Mike: I think that was a state legislature (Indiana), and once the kids read it, then what? Now, the WOlfram stuff I agree with you about.
Someone blogged about using frozen hotdogs for the needle, do you recall which blog?
Here is the hot dog thing, a java applet, and the explanation. (I mentioned them on my blog last year, so I had the links handy.) I’ll admit, some of the Pi Day stuff is silly—definitely more appropriate for elementary school, if anywhere. But I enjoy the excuse for a bit of humor and some silly poetry, and it does give me a topic to blog about.
Thanks for repeating the question here, Jonathan! And there are interesting responses already!
The hotdogs….
http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Pi-by-Throwing-Frozen-Hot-Dogs
Mike
You may like my bit on the ancient Egyptian value of pi; it’s linked on the newest Carnival of Mathematics.
http://greedygreedyalgorithms.blogspot.com/2008/03/carnival-of-mathematics-no-28.html
There’s a bunch of Pi Party activities, songs and ideas for primary grades on the Googol Power website:
http://www.googolpower.com/content/free-learning-resources/seasonal-math/pi-day-celebration