What better way to celebrate Pi Day than with a hands-on, tech-on exploration activity that helps students build their own understanding of what pi really is? Well, probably a good piece of pie, but this is awesome nonetheless.
Here’s what you do:
- Get a bunch of fabric tape measures (using string and then measuring lengths on the string works too).
- Get a bunch of circular objects.
- Have kids measure the circumference and diameter of different circular objects.
- Instruct the kids to submit their measurements to a Google Form
(note: my form doesn’t collect names, but it would be best to collect them so you can help kids who have measurement errors). - Setup a QUERY formula to find the circumference/diameter for each entry.
=QUERY(B2:C1000, “select B/C”) - Fix that pesky 2 in the Query formula after the first submission – when the first entry inserts a row, it changes B2 to B3. Change it after the first entry and you’re good to go.
- Setup an AVERAGE formula to find the mean of the circumference/diameter calculations.
- Project the spreadsheet as entries are recorded. See what your kiddos notice about the numbers they see on their screen!
