Pi Day in Junior High

Kelly Neale
Attention all math nerds! This year was Super Pi Day, 3.1415, which comes along only once every 100 years. We celebrated in Junior High eating Moon Pies, watching some entertaining and educational videos about the derivation of Pi, and competing to see who could recite the most digits of Pi. This year's winner was Bas Finch, who recited 55 digits of Pi! 7th graders also conducted their own experiment deriving Pi, using string to measure the circumferences of objects ranging from a table to a quarter, dividing it by the diameter of those same objects, and discovering the resulting ratio of 3.14. They went on to use this information to also discover that a circle can actually be dissected and reassembled to form a parallelogram, with a base of pi * r and a height of r - hence the resulting formula of the area of a circle = pi * r squared. Following Spring Break, 7th graders will take their geometry study to the next level with polyhedrons!
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Located in Los Angeles, CA, Berkeley Hall School is a private, coeducational school for students in preschool through grade 8. Rigorous academics in a supportive atmosphere and grounded character development allow students to become fearless scholars and conscientious citizens - gain a love of learning, leadership with social responsibility, creativity with moral integrity, and self-esteem with compassion for others and the environment.