Students in Mrs. Ashley McAmis’s seventh grade Pre-Algebra class did some hands-on investigation of circles. They were given the task of measuring the circumference and diameter of various objects. They then had to find the ratio of these two measurements.
Students quickly discovered that measuring round objects can be difficult, as all of their ratio answers should have been 3.14. Some students were close, but no one had the exact calculation correct. This investigation helped students understand why we use pi when calculating measurements with round objects.
