At some point in your middle school years you learned about pi or 3.14 and figured this squiggly line with two feet wouldn’t resurface in your adult life but once a year on March 14.
Today, as part of the AZ SciTech Festival celebration of Pi Day, the Arizona Museum of Natural History (AzMNH) hosted an event to teach all generations how pi, and the calculation of circumference, weaves its way back into our lives.
Kathy Eastman, Educator Curator AzMNH said, “It’s exciting to be able to make math applicable to the sciences and to learn how it was used [in other areas]. Also to watch people interact with math and understand why pi is an important number.”
At the museum, educational curators and experts from ASU Center for Meteorite Studies and Space Exploration were on hand to educate their guests on the uses of pi in other industries. Eastman shared that paleontologists use pi in the field to find the circumference of skulls or cross sections of leg bones to determine the size of an animal, where as astronomers use the number to estimate volumes of alien oceans and archaeologists find the circumference of ancient pottery, homes or calendar tablets.
As for the pie, they offered many flavors delicious mini delectables for guests at the end of the tour. Eastman said she was undecided about which flavor she will choose, “it’s going to be a hard choice.”
Here is some pi trivia from NASA
AZ SciTech Festival has many events for the public, check out their schedule here.
Coming March 28th Southwest Maker Fest will be held in Downtown Mesa from noon to 8 p.m. Get more information here.
Learn more about events at the Arizona Museum of Natural History
