Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical quantity π. The mathematical quantity is celebrated on March 14th, also the first three digits of the quantity, 3.14. At Scarsdale High School, Pi Day is celebrated with fun, creative, and engaging math-related presentations, pizza sales, and of course, pie sales. “I think Pi Day is just really interesting and it’s such a great opportunity to celebrate and appreciate math,” Elle Lee ’26 said.
The idea originated in 2019 and was planned for 2020; however, COVID-19 postponed the celebration until 2022 with only 7 presentations. Over the last two years, Pi Day has been scaled up to the larger celebration it is today.
STEM teacher Dr. Micheal Kumaresan, who organizes Pi Day, hopes to give students the ability to learn math concepts that they may not regularly learn in the classroom through different Pi Day presentations with the help of his colleagues. “We have so many teachers and staff who have worked in [different] industries, who have taught at other places, and who have a lot of knowledge to share. So the idea was always to get them to be the center of the whole thing,” Dr. Kumaresan said.
Chemistry teacher Andrew Visconti hosted a presentation with Physics teacher Kevin Anton on “Balloon Jousting” which combined concepts from chemistry and physics. “I decided to host an event for Pi Day because I enjoy sharing the experience of interactive activities with students that allow them to explore STEM-related concepts that foster curiosity and interest. I participated as an event host last year and enjoyed my experience so much that I decided to partake again this year, collaborating with Mr. Anton,” Visconti said.
Special Education teacher Jonathan Feld hosted a presentation regarding math in sports and game shows. “Dr. Kumaresan asked if I, along with any of my colleagues, would like to present. As LRC teachers, we don’t get to do formal lessons, and thought this would be a cool opportunity for us to weave game shows and sports into math,” Feld said.
Math and Computer Science teacher Douglas Vermes presented a lesson inspired by the recent increase in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in society. Vermes taught students about deepfakes, which are videos or images generated by AI that use a specific type of machine learning called “deep” learning. “It was really interesting to see the setbacks and dangers of the rapidly developing technology,” Armita Ahmed ’26 stated.
Pi Day is one of those times when students are allowed to take a break from regular classes and explore learning in a new way. “I feel that having these kinds of days takes the focus away from [grades]. It really allows us to concentrate on just trying to enjoy the subject matter while having nothing at stake… So I think these kinds of days allow us to tap into that important aspect of education,” Dr. Kumaresan explained.
“I think it’s very important to have a Pi day because math gets a lot of flak, but when you have a day with fun activities and stuff, people will get a better association even if it’s just because they got to skip class. When I knew there was going to be a presentation, I got excited,” Julia Wu-Oswald ’26 said.
