Celebrating Pi Day with Geography

On March 14th of every year, our school, like many, celebrate Pi Day.

Signs were posted around the school to celebrate pi (and Albert Einstein’s birthday - we even had a look-alike contest). Teachers throughout the school did different activities that involved circles, diameters, radii, and pi. The event is a nice way to build community throughout the building.

In the 7th grade geography class, students worked with continent’s population.  After quickly drawing circles to represent their perceptions of each continent’s comparative population, students found the actual populations.  They then worked with diameter, radius, and area to draw appropriate circles to represent population.  

When arranged in their appropriate spots in relationship to one another on the globe, the students had a simple cartogram.

Displaying the population data in this visual manner made a great learning opportunity for the students.  They remarked how Asia’s great size compared to the other continents was striking - they knew it would be the largest, but not by that much.  They were also surprised that Australia was so small and that Africa was as large as it was.

A simple activity to help celebrate Pi Day, and math, allowed students the opportunity to gain new-found understandings to better understand the world.

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If your students took part in some engaging Pi Day activities, or if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.

Colleagues Inspire Through Community, Camaraderie

A week before our annual World Geography and Culture Night was to happen, I was nervous.  Major details had not been worked out, I felt we may have too few participants, and I was fearful we may have a failure on our hands.  

Inside the EarthView globe.

Our night has three components:  a potluck dinner for which families sign-up and bring a cultural dish or dessert to share, activities for families to have some relaxed fun while being exposed to geography and culture, and a performance.  The potluck and performance (the dynamic Genki Spark) were set, but we were without activities for our families - needing new ones to keep the event fresh.

We were stuck, trying to figure out what to do and how to convince others to run some activities that were not even planned yet.

But then, at our last meeting prior to the event, we had our own little miracle.  Several teachers, who had not been involved in the past events, stepped forward to take an active role.  And they responded in heroic fashion.

Playing Loteria

The Spanish teachers, who were struggling to organize a dance activity for the evening, scrapped that plan and went with a simpler alternative: Loteria.  Their room was a big hit, as they energetically engaged families in Spanish, opening their eyes to a slice of Mexico.

Our resident Crazy Reading Ladies, an English teacher and reading specialist, had an epiphany for an activity connected to this year’s AllIn!™ book Unbroken.  In the novel, Louis Zamperini’s mother makes gnocchi, so these teachers had families up to their elbows in mashed potatoes, giving them another access point to the novel while exposing them to a bit of Italian culture.

Making Mama Zamperini's gnocchi.

The school’s art teacher jumped in, too.  She organized a paper quilt making activity.  Families could express their creative side while designing a square showing what culture means to them.  Her enthusiasm helped to capture imaginations.

Our fourth World Geography and Culture Night was our best ever.

We have always envisioned the evening as a school wide event, and our colleagues helped us move toward that goal.  Everywhere I turned people were enjoying themselves; students and their families were excited while happily gaining exposure to culture and geography.  The potluck is always a big hit, as are the performance and the unique EarthView globe.  But the spirit and creativity of our colleagues pushed the evening over the top.  They were not only hosting engaging activities, but they sold them to the families with great vigor.

My colleagues impressed me, made me more appreciative of their talents, made me feel fortunate to be part of such a vibrant team and community, and made me believe that, with their continued contributions, next year’s event will be our best yet.

 If you gain inspiration from your colleagues or host great events that you help organize at your school, please leave a comment. I would love to hear about them.

The Genki Spark taiko drumming.