Pi Day activity ideas

To celebrate Pi Day (March 14), we’ve collated some fun activities for use in the classroom or at home.

 

A brief history of pi

A quick read about the ancient mathematicians who searched for pi.

https://www.exploratorium.edu/pi/history-of-pi

 

Pi darts

A video explaining how to calculate pi using a dart board.

https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/calculating-pi-physicsgirl-video-1017/calculating-pi-with-darts-physics-girl/#.WqG8auhuaUk

 

Pi notes

Uses 10 chosen notes to play the first 10 000 digits of pi as a musical sequence (requires Flash).

https://avoision.com/experiments/pi10k

 

Pi and Fibonacci

A video showing real-life instances of pi and fibonacci.

https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nvmm-math-pifibonacci/pi-the-fibonacci-sequence/#.WqHJYuhuaUk

 

Searching pi

Search the first 200 000 digits of pi for any string of numbers, such as a birthday.

http://www.angio.net/pi/bigpi.cgi

 

Pi art

An article showing some fascinating pi-inspired data visualisation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/14/10-stunning-images-show-the-beauty-hidden-in-pi/?utm_term=.6dda76862e73

 

More activities

Exploratorium has a list of hands-on activities for learning more about pi.

https://www.exploratorium.edu/pi/activities