Pi day : racing towards the last digit
By Bill Lee, Andrew Park and Michelle Lee
Edited by Amy Shin
Design by Nicole Yang
Edited by Amy Shin
Design by Nicole Yang
Pi day this year is unlike any other pi day in history. March 14th, 2015 would be when the first 6 digits of pi, 3.1415, correspond to the date and the year, which would only come once in a century.
In honor of this special event, Mark Dominguez, 8th grade math teacher, held an annual event called the Pi Contest where students would try to recite as many digits of pi as possible. As a reward, Mr. Dominguez promised an extra credit of 10% in any given summative assignment, catching the attention of many students. Memorizing numbers, especially one that never ends, is never an easy task. It would seem that students would be reluctant to even try. However, extra credit seems to have a large impact on the students of SIS. Students knew that entering this competition would higher their grades and that motivated numerous students to compete. Yeji Chun (8) was the top winner of the contest, reciting 452 digits out of pure memory. She stated, “The main reason I started memorizing was to earn extra credit. I memorized 90 digits a day and repeated this for about 5 days. It was hard in the beginning but because I was doing it for a few days, I got used to it.” This event clearly proved to teachers and students that extra credit can be a great motivation for students to do things that nobody imagined doing. It also displayed the high levels of determination in the students of SIS. The Pi Contest was to celebrate the unique day that only comes once a year, but it ended up achieving something greater. At the end of the day, students were able to see not only their academic capabilities, but realized what motivated them the most. “The Pi Day contest is something fun that is a change in the curriculum this year to excite the students. Since I don’t give that much extra credit, I think that the main motivation was the chance to make up for a bad grade, since SIS students are very competitive. Thus, I don’t that students would have done it if they weren’t given the extra credit” said 8th grade mathematics teacher Mr. Dominguez. |
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