Celebrated globally on March 14 (3/14), Pi Day is an annual opportunity for Maths enthusiasts to recite the infinite digits of Pi, talk to their friends about Maths, and to eat pie. At Rehoboth, the Maths Learning Area celebrate Pi Day by running a hands-on activity for students in Years 7-10.
This year’s Pi Day activity saw the students calculating the best buy of a number of shopping items using unit pricing. Items such as Coca-Cola (cans, bottle, glass), sugar (2kg, sugar cubes, sugar sticks), chocolate (share packets, block chocolate, mini Easter eggs, Easter bunnies, giant Easter eggs) were used. Students also worked out the cost per serve by comparing cereals (Wheatbix, Coco Pops, Rice Bubbles, Nutrigrain) and Hyrdalyte per dosage (icy poles, tablet, sachet, liquid).
Each year group was given time to select a number of items to work out which was the -best value and which was the worst values.
They were quite surprised to find that it was not always the cheapest to buy in bulk.
The students also discovered that travel size, although more convenient, was often much more expensive. They also discovered they would get a lot more chocolate if they asked their parents to buy them the share packets of chocolate rather than an egg for Easter.
It was great to the students get involved and see many of them attempting some of the more difficult problems of comparing items that were not exactly the same, such as popcorn kernels and popped popcorn, or cordials of different concentrations. The students worked well in groups to help one another solve any problems they faced.
A big thanks goes to the Maths staff (Mr Eikleboom, Mr Peletier, Mrs van Wyk and Mr Vasquez) for organising the activities as well as to all of the students who took part on the day and made the activities what they were.
