Happy Pi Day

This year, GSN’s Math Department organized a “Pi Competition” which took place on Friday, March 12. GSN High School Math teacher, Mr. Rafael Rawls, shared: "Pi Day gives teachers and students an opportunity to celebrate the constant Pi and to have fun conversations around math. The Pi Competition is an excellent opportunity for students of all ages to show off their memorization skills in fun competition. These academic challenges are appealing to students who have more confidence in their mental abilities than their physical abilities. And the students are definitely motivated by the incentive of pie!"

During the past weeks, students from Kindergarten through Grade 12 began working on their memory skills to remember as many digits of pi in sequential order and had to recite them, without error, in their Homeroom classes. The students able to recite the most digits of pi were declared the grade-level winner, enjoyed their very own tasty pie and moved on to the next level… the school-wide Pi Competition!

With over 31 trillion numbers in its sequence, Grade 7 student Marie Qian was the school-wide champion for GSN’s Pi Day competition, being able to recite a total of 224 numbers! Marie said: “It took me five days of practice and about two hours every day to memorize all these digits.” 3 . 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 5 8 9 7 9 3 2 3 8 4 6 2 6 4 3 3 8 3 2 7 9 5 0 2 8 8 4 1 9 7 1 6 9 3 9 9 3 7 5 1 0 5 8 2 0 9 7 4 9 4 4 5 9 2 3 0 7 8 1 6 4 0 6 2 8 6 2 0 8 9 9 8 6 2 8 0 3 4 8 2 5 3 4 2 1 1 7 0 6 7 9 8 2 1 4 8 0 8 6 5 1 3 2 8 2 3 0 6 6 4 7 0 9 3 8 4 4 6 0 9 5 5 0 5 8 2 2 3 1 7 2 5 3 5 9 4 0 8 1 2 8 4 8 1 1 1 7 4 5 0 2 8 4 1 0 2 7 0 1 9 3 8 5 2 1 1 0 5 5 5 9 6 4 4 6 2 2 9 4 8 9 5 4 9 3 0 3 8 1 9 6 4 4 2 8 8 1 0 9 7 5 6 6 5 9 3 3 4 4 6 1 2 8 4 7 was the winning streak and ­­­­Marie was awarded a big sized pie of her own choice from Paisley’s Bakery! Congratulations to all of the studious Lions who took part in this mathematical challenge! Following the students, teachers had a chance to show off their memory skills, too! Grade 12 Homeroom teacher, Mr. Gerhard lead the competition by being able to remember 60 numbers of pi!

As Mr. Harvey, middle school math teacher, mentions,"As a math teacher, it is such a breath of fresh air to see students seeing one cool side of mathematics through the pi day competition. I can see that not only did the participants were into it and giving their best, but even the audience, who were just sitting, are also really feeling the excitement and anticipation. Indeed, John Forbes Nash, Jr quote is so true when he said, "You don't have to be a mathematician to have a feel for numbers".