By Louise Carpenter

Graphing the diameter vs. the circumference of a variety of round objects at East Somerville Community School π Night.

Monday, March 14 was Pi Day (3.14) – but not just any π day, it was a Well-Rounded π Day because it is the year 2016: 3.14.16! 3.159… rounds off to 3.16.

What better excuse is there to have a celebration of math with middle schoolers than π? Last Friday night, well over 250 students, parents, teachers, and volunteers from the high school, PTA and community, celebrated π at the East Somerville Community School by eating pizza for dinner, then spending an evening estimating, creating, collecting data, answering questions, and ending with pies for everyone.

After enjoying pizza donated by the Bickoff family of the Commercial Cleaning Service (discounted by White Sport), the students from ESCS, who were joined by students from Healey, Argenziano, West Somerville, and Brown schools went around to a wide variety of math activities set up in the gym. These activities included bicycle wheel roll, a guessing contest, toothpick drop (Buffon Needle problem), drawing a circle the size of a CD, mystery boxes, π button design, π facts quiz, birthday in π, circle in square vs square in circle, drawing cardioid or nephroid, drawing concentric circles by folding, drawing circles by tangents, drawing circle by right angles, predicting how high of a pour, graphing circumference vs. diameter, predicting circumferences in mm by feel of objects in mystery boxes, and predicting volume in cubic cm. of various spheres.

The event was planned by Scott Weaver (ESCS), Wil Jacques (Healey), and Erica Voolich (Somerville Mathematics Fund). Table Talk Pies of Worcester generously supplied small pies for all who came that night and large pies for the winners of events. Table Talk has generously supported this Somerville Math Fund event for thirteen years.

When planning the first SMF π Night in 2003, the Math Fund called the Table Talk Pi Company and explained what π day was and Table Talk generously donated large pies for prizes and small pies for everyone. Thirteen years later, Table Talk Pies is not only still donating to the Somerville Pi night celebration, but to many more celebrations. In fact, this year Table Talk donated than 47,242 pies to schools and organizations celebrating pi day.

The organizers extend a big thank you to all the volunteers and donors who made this fun, educational evening possible. It takes a community to celebrate π day.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was founded in 2000 with the mission to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville MA. In April they will be looking for applications for renewable college mathematics scholarships. For more information or to make a donation or to volunteer go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org or mathfund@gmail.com or call 617-666-0666.