Friday, March 28, 2014
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Jean Wargo's seventh grade class at Holy Family School celebrated Pi Day.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Stephen Babik was able to name the first 13 of the first 500 digits of Pi to rank first in his class.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A Pi pie that was brought into Jean Wargo's seventh grade class at Holy Family School.
By TIM CLEVELAND
Jean Wargo has come up with a way to not only teach her students at Holy Family School about Pi but to also make things fun.
For National Pi Day on March 14, the students in her six math classes in grades six through eight brought in pies for National Pi Day and they had a competition to see which students could name the most digits of Pi’s first 500 digits.
Nearly 100 students in all participated.
The students brought in various cherry and apple pies, including one that had the Pi symbol on it drawn in frosting.
“They come in and we do it every March 14,” Wargo said. “I’m the math teacher, so Pi is important to us for doing circumference and area of circles. National Pi Day is a national event. There are schools across the country that do celebrations of Pi Day in different ways.”
Wargo said that tying in her teaching of Pi in with National Pi Day and having them bring in pies was a good way to make the day fun.
“It gives them a day off of doing regular math classes,” she said. “They have fun, they get to share their pies. We work on Pi problems. They enjoy trying to recite the digits of Pi. They like it; I think if you interviewed them I think you would hear them say that.”
Last year, Wargo said one student was able to name the first 100 digits of Pi, more than anyone else. This year, in her 20-students seventh-grade class, tops was Stephen Babik, who was able to name 13.
“I only got seven last year, so I tried really hard to practice,” he said.
Stephen added that he’s been learning more about Pi and enjoyed math.