Pi day!
I know this has little to do with literacy in the way we normally think of it, but it does have to do with enhancing mathematical literacy. Tomorrow is PI DAY!!! For those of you who don’t know what that is, Pi day is a celebration of the number Pi. It is, coincidentally, also the birthday of Albert Einstein. Every March 14, people all around the world celebrate Pi day. (3.14… the first 3 #’s of Pi… March 14: 3.14…. get it?) Many math teachers take this as a sort of math-themed holiday, and there are scores of websites with ideas and lesson plans for Pi day. I personally was introduced to the idea of it in my 9th grade math class. It was a fun day. We got to sing “Pi day” songs. And of course, there was pie… (not real pie, because it would have been messy, but I encourage future teachers to use real Pie.) We talked about the number Pi, why it is special, and what is so important about it. Turns out it does more than finding the area or whatever of a circle.. it also has a handle in creating a fibbonachi (I totally spelled that wrong) sequence. This sequence is what allows petals to grow on a flower, or chambers to grow in a nautilus shell. It’s some pretty amazing stuff when you get into it. But generally it’s a fun day to celebrate math.
Here’s a random video I found on youtube about Pi great to show on Pi day
