Students at De Anza Magnet School celebrated the math world’s most famous number with activities and stories revolving around pi on Thursday.
Celebrated on March 14, the event serves as a fun and unique learning opportunity for students of all ages.
“Pi Day is important to celebrate because it helps students realize math is all around us and that learning it can be fun,” said Diana Steward, an intervention teacher. “It gives them the opportunity to play with numbers and see the fun in math.”
In addition to hands-on learning activities in class, students also had the opportunity to pie their teachers and participate in a pie-eating contest.
After winning the pi-reciting contest, Adrian Huerta had the opportunity to pie school Principal Terri Mason.
“I practiced all last week and a lot last night,” said Adrian, a 13-year-old seventh-grader. “I started memorizing the numbers in groups, because trying to find a pattern was hard.”
The pie-eating contest also served as a fundraiser for the school, which brought in more than $300.
“The teachers that have the most money in their jars have to get pied,” said Sara Verdugo, an 11-year-old fifth-grader. “It’s fun because the money will help pay for activities at our school.”
Eighth-grade student Joseph Salazar said he enjoyed spending the day with the younger students and teaching them about pi.
“We taught the third-graders key vocabulary words that involve pi like circumference and diameter,” said Joseph, a 13-year-old student. “We also taught them the origin of the number through a fun story.”
David Gomez said he thought it was important to celebrate Pi Day because math is an important subject.
“Pi Day is fun because we get to pie teachers,” David, a 13-year-old eighth-grader said. “It’s also fun because we get to teach the little kids what we’re learning in advanced math.”
Staff Writer Karina Lopez can be reached at 760-337-3439 or klopez@ivpressonline.com
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