Merced Schools Celebrate Pi Day

Students in the Merced City School District got into the spirit of Pi Day on Tuesday.

The annual celebration falls on March 14 because the date resembles the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, known as Pi, which begins with 3.14.

“At Hoover Middle School, students showed off their memorization skills with a contest in the library,” district officials said in a news release. “They were invited to stop by during lunch to type as many digits as they could remember into a timed computer program.”

The program counts the number of digits entered and stops if an error is made.

“One student had her classmates in awe as she correctly entered 403 digits,” school officials said.

Every student who tried received a pencil for their efforts. The top 10 won a pencil and a T-shirt. The top five earned a pencil, T-shirt, and lunch, and the first place finisher was rewarded with all of those items and a tablet computer.

At Muir Elementary School, several students also took part in Pi day festivities.

Ms. DeThomas’ Montessori class studied the number Pi and learned about its attributes.

“Then they made Pi medallions and necklaces with various colored beads representing the digits of Pi to the 154th place,” officials said.

They also practiced drawing a perfect circle with the help of a string and chalk and watched a giant Pi descend from their Promethean board at 1:59 p.m. to mark the next three digits of Pi (3.14159).

This story was originally published March 14, 2017 at 6:55 PM with the headline "Merced Schools Celebrate Pi Day."