Easy as Pi at Arcado Elementary

Students at Arcado look forward to Pi Day, math teacher Kathe Gowland says.

On March 14 (3-14, get it?), Gowland's fourth and fifth grade students study pi -- the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter -- by measuring all kinds of round baked goods, from pies to cookies, donuts and pizza pies. Then they get to eat them.

"They love it," Gowland said in her classroom, which was fully decorated to celebrate the day. "The're really involved and look forward to it."

Even the second graders were working hard to grasp the concept. Down the hall in Nicole Fiber's second-grade class, students were learning the first numbers of pi, and they were given a grid to create a frequency chart for its digits. Afterward, the classroom was totally quiet as they studied their plate of baked goods.

Learning math at Arcado, it seems, is as easy as pi.