Wednesday, March 12, 2014

3-12 Snow Day Challenge

Hey Team Mindcrafters!

Here we are again, right?  Years from now we will look back and say, "I remember the record-breaking winter of 2014."

After you help your parents shovel the sidewalks and driveway and clean your room and do your chores, I have two snow day challenges for you to try.  One is a Math challenge and the other is a Science Challenge.

Math challenge.  
Friday is 3-14, which is celebrated as Pi Day.  Pi, which is sometimes abbreviated 3.14 or by using the symbol π, is a very important number in understanding circles.  It can be used to help figure out the circumference (distance around) and area (number of square units) found in any circle.  It is sometimes represented as π.  Pi is what's called an irrational number, which means it cannot be represented by any fraction.  It is also unique because it is a non-repeating, non-ending decimal.

Here are just the first 100 digits of Pi (π):
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944

5923078164062862089986280348253421170679

Here's a Flocabulary song about Circles and Pi:

So here's my challenge, I challenge you to memorize the as many digits in Pi as you can by Friday.  
The top 4 students in each class will get a slice of my wife's homemade strawberry pie covered in whipped
cream.  Trust me, its delicious. 

Seem too hard?  Here's a kid your age who memorized over 100 digits.  You can, too! 

Science challenge.
The Science challenge is explained in this video.  Its easy to set up and do.  Try it!


--
Shane Pransky
Whitehouse Primary
4th Grade