While some businesses celebrated Pi Day with discounted pizza and free pie desserts, WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and Technology hosted its first ever event with math activities, games and puzzles for all ages Friday.
Pi is a mathematical constant, equal to about 3.141592654. It represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter by the Greek letter π.
The museum’s mission was to show attendees that math wasn’t “scary” and break the stigma surrounding math being difficult. Event attendees were encouraged to participate in the activities regardless of skill or experience with numbers.
Kelli Debikey is the education director at WonderLab Museum. Before working at the museum, Debikey was a middle school math teacher for 20 years at Harmony School in Bloomington.
Debikey was excited to prepare for Pi Day — wearing a themed dress with the digits of Pi — and organized math activities. These activities used color, problem solving, riddles and storytelling to engage different age groups on the first and second levels of the museum.
The Pi Day activities at the museum involved stringing 10 colored beads representing a single digit of pi numbered zero through nine to follow, using a spirograph — a geometric tool containing wheels and rings from the 1970s to create circle art and find circumference and diameter — and exploring brain teasers and optical illusions.
Attendees also looked at prisms because they connect to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein was born March 14, 1879, and the museum wanted to incorporate his work into the activities.
“The main goal is to destigmatize mathematics, to see that it can be fun, it can be playful, it can be creative, it can incorporate art, nature and things that are aesthetically pleasing,” Debikey said. “It’s not just chugging out numbers.”
Ollie McDermott-Sipe is one of the experience managers at the museum and leads a science story time with different topics every Thursday morning for families. McDermott-Sipe led two story times in honor of Pi Day.
“We sang about five little frogs, and them jumping into the pond. We did some subtraction, and then we used some cards with circles on them to put frogs on circles to help count them,” McDermott-Sipe said. “So that was kind of our segmented thinking about circles.”
Other businesses also participated in Pi Day, but not to celebrate math. Papa Johns rewards members were able to get large or extra-large pizzas for $3.14. The Indiana Memorial Union’s Sugar and Spice Bakery gave away a free slice of pie to customers who showed an Instagram post from the IU Union Board.
Because Pi Day fell on a Friday this year and Monroe County schools weren’t officially on spring break, not a lot of people came to WonderLab for the Pi Day activities.
A few families with children under the age of 5 participated in everyday museum activities and exhibits, such as looking at fish swimming in an aquarium or playing with interactive displays. Still, the organizers were excited to test out activities during the event and plans to host another Pi Day in 2026.
“I’m excited for the next years to come. This year’s a bit of an anomaly and that it doesn't fall on spring break here in Monroe County,” Debikey said. “But next year it’s a Saturday and the start of spring break, and it should then be on spring break from then forward. Meaning, it’ll be a much bigger affair.”
