March 2006

High School Math Students Celebrate Pi Day
On Tuesday, March 14 students and staff celebrated the 300th anniversary of pi with “Pi Day.” Pi Day is a national event honoring pi (π), which is an infinite that starts as 3.1459, and continues indefinitely without ever repeating a sequence of digits. It falls onto March 14, or 3/14, because the numbers 3.14 are the beginning of this never-ending decimal. The classes of Mrs. Clemence, Mrs. Miles, Mrs. Restive, Mrs. Santangelo and Mrs. Tucci discovered pi by finding the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, using circular objects, such as canned goods. After computing the ratio of the circumference of a pi to its diameter, students got to eat their own miniature apple pies! High schoolers also participated in a pi trivia contest, sang a song of pi and were given a special pi magnet as a reminder of the celebration. Thank you to the WalMart Distribution Center for donating the pies and to the Johnstown Teacher’s Association who gave the math department a grant to help fund the cost of Pi Day. Additionally, all of the canned goods — brought in by the students — will be donated to a local food pantry.

For the entire month of March students and staff will be challenged by the JHS math department. There are daily challenges that range from estimating the number of M&M’s in various containers to using Roman Numerals and percentages to solve algebraic logic puzzles. Winners are announced each afternoon — and it’s all part of March Madness! (Click here to view photo gallery)

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