BSG Pi Week 2024

This week was a very special internationally celebrated week in the world of Mathematics. On March 14th, or 3.14, it was World Pi Day. The number Pi, traditionally known as the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference, is probably the most famous of all mathematical numbers, and children all over the world learn about it from a very early age. Despite being accessible to everyone, mathematicians continue to discover the number Pi in all areas of mathematics, not just in circles. Pi appears routinely in equations describing the fundamental principles of the universe! Because Pi is an irrational number (you can’t write it as a fraction), they even use supercomputers to continue to try and find an even more accurate version of Pi; most recently it was calculated to over 100 trillion digits!

Pi Quiz

At BSG this week, secondary students have been enjoying a plethora of mathematics related games and activties. On Monday was a fast and furious maths quiz where houses fought for the coveted title of quiz masters – do you know what Pi is when rounded to four significant figures?

Then on Tuesday, students competed against each other in the world famous UK based game, Countdown; 30 exciting seconds of number crunching.

Pi Relay

Wednesday brought the Pi relay race; a house competition, students ran the length of a volleyball court, wrote a digit of Pi, then ran back, passed the pen to the next person and repeat. In six minutes, each house wrote over 30 digits of Pi from memory.

Pie the Teacher

Thursday was the inaugural Pie The Teacher event. We raised over 3,000rmb for charity by selling tickets to students for 5rmb each (you can do the maths to work out how many tickets we sold!) to have an opportunity to pie the teacher. As you can see from the pictures, a great time was had by everyone! All money raised will buy much needed resources for our Community Partnership sponsored Huiling Special Needs School.
Finally on Friday, students battled against each other with the classic Pi digit recital competition! We managed to finish the first few rounds, but due to its popularity, the overall champion will have to claim victory next week.

We wish everyone in the BSG community a very happy Pi Week, and that our students continue to foster a love of learning in Mathematics.

--Secondary Maths Department