What is so great about Pi? Well to start with, Pi is not only a delicious dessert present most notably at Thanksgiving and other various holidays, but also a number. Pi is most often rounded to 3.14 in daily calculations, but the value actually expands infinitely. It has been calculated to over a trillion digits, as an irrational number and fraction 22/7, the number repeats without repetition or pattern.

Monday, March 13th, marked the beginning of Pi Week in Ms. Baltera’s math classes. Ms. Baltera assigned her students an optional Pi scavenger hunt for extra credit and a fun way to celebrate the extraordinary number. The scavenger hunt led throughout the school building and challenged students to look really closely at the hallways and classrooms they pass each and every day.

It was thirty questions. One of the questions asked for the favorite pie of the principal or one of the assistant principals, along with his or her signature. Using other languages was a challenge, too. A question could only be solved with the help of a teacher in the foreign language department. The hunt did not just involve numbers relating to Pi, but tied in the entire staff at times, too.

Another part of the scavenger hunt led into the library and involved finding books related to the number and its history. For example, the country most associated with Pi is Greece! The clues took Ms. Baltera’s students around the rows of books and into the reference section, but the library was not the only stop.

Other clues led to various murals painted around the school and elevators that some students had never even realized existed. Junior Morgan Nicholson said, “The scavenger hunt was definitely a cool way to see the school in a new light and discover parts of the school I didn’t even know existed because I had never used them or run into them in the past.”

Junior Mackenzie Brennan agreed, “It was interesting that though I have been going to this school for three years I had no idea where anything was”. Most notably, the mural by room 180 with a picture of a book that reads Reasons Not to Paint a Mural by L C McG.  Additionally, the words written along the wall in between the upstairs hallways by the bathroom reads a quote by Einstein, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”.

Overall, at the closing of another successful Pi Week, Einstein summed it up best. Students learned more about the extraordinary number and a bit more about the school as well, trying to solve the puzzles in the scavenger hunt.