Session 7: Pi Day

This morning the girls joined Miss Hampson in the Mathematics Department to celebrate Pi Day. The session began with the girls learning about the parts of a circle e.g. Radius, diameter and circumference. They then had tremendous fun measuring the circumference of different circular objects with string in order to establish how many diameter lengths could be cut. Each object resulted in a measure of three and a bit diameter lengths. This then led to a discussion of Pi and the girls learnt that Pi is infinite. Miss Hampson then presented some very interesting facts about Pi: We have been studying Pi for over 4,000 years; Pi has no repeating patterns; Pi has been calculated to more than a trillion digits and amazingly, the Guiness World Record for reciting the digits of Pi is held by Lu Chao of China who, in 2005, recited 67,890!

The girls learnt all about the history of Pi - it is believed that the Ancient Egyptians used Pi when they built the Great Pyramid of Giza between 3550 and 2500 BC. The first time Pi was written down was around 1900 BC. Sources show the Babylonians used an approximation of 3 to work out the circumference of a circle from its diameter. In 1550 BC an Egyptian scribe named Ahmes wrote the Rhind Papyrus which included an approximation of Pi of 3.16. The Greek mathematician Archimedes found a method for approximating Pi between 287-212 BC. Once computers were invented, people were asked to estimate Pi far more accurately. As of 2016, the most digits found was, 22,459,157,718,361!

After break, the girls watched a wonderful video entitled 'Sir Circumference and the Dragon of Pi : A Maths Adventure'. They then completed a Pi word search and then had tremendous fun devising sentences using different letter words to symbolise 3.14159. Their final activity was to create a Pi chain with various coloured paper.

Thank you, Miss Hampson, for such an interesting and engaging morning!

Our next SHINE session is after half term on Saturday 2nd March. As we will be in the Chemistry Department, it is vital that girls wear sensible clothes and shoes and to ensure that long hair is tied back.