The Watkins Mill Math Department has introduced a school-wide celebration never seen before: Pi Week.
This week-long celebration showcased five different themes: a pizza pie eating contest, pi-themed creation, pi recitation, human pi and exact pi, and math teachers getting pied.
Preparing for the week was especially exciting. The Resource Teacher of the Math Department, Melissa Ashby, said, “I was hoping to see students get excited about math and hopefully find a little bit of fun in math outside of their classes.”
Its highlight of the week was Pi Day (March 14th), which showcased math teachers being pied in the face. The winners of the pie eating contest and pi recitation were allowed to pie the math teachers that received the most money in a jar with their name on it, a form of voting. The winning teachers were Melissa Ashby, Stephen Burrows, and Amy Bresson.
Delving into pi, all students were encouraged to participate in many different ways. From racing to finish a box of pizza to memorizing the most amount of digits to pi and drawing an exact circle with a diameter of one, this was an opportunity for students to celebrate math without the use of formulas and calculations.
This celebration wasn’t just for students, but for the staff and the math department as well. “I was also excited to see the math teachers show their love for math in a different way that I don’t get to see sometimes,” Ashby said.
For its first appearance at Watkins Mill, this week-long celebration brought lots of amusement and excitement to the school. Pi Week is expected to make its appearance again next year.
