Cwhit@icsi.net

To determine PI

Poster board, marker, ruler, bag of unpopped popcorn, Casio graphing calculator.

• Inscribe a circle in a 12-inch square.
• In pairs of students, sitting about 3 feet from the poster board on opposite sides, each student is to toss a handful of the popcorn, a few kernels at a time, towards the poster board.
• When finished, count the number of kernels in the square but not in the circle.
• Then count the number of kernels in the circle.
• Enter the number of kernels in the circle only in List 2.
• Add the number of the kernels in the square but not in the circle to the number of kernels in the circle to get the total number of kernels in the square.
• Enter this total in List 1.
• Any kernels not in the square are not counted.
• Repeat this process nine more times so we have ten entries in List1 and ten entries in List 2.
• List 3 will be 4 times List 1 divided by List 2. These should be close approximations to PI.