March is Math Month at SCIDES!

February was History Month at SCIDES, and we hope you had a chance to check out all the fantastic resources. All of North America celebrated Black History month, and if you haven't seen it yet, you need to check out this short video, where a 106-year-old black woman meets President Obama. (If you have seen it, watch it again - it's fantastic!). Now, let's move on to Math Month! We're excited about that, and it's not just because we plan on eating a lot of pie on 3/14.

This month, we want to share a few interesting and fascinating math facts with you, and invite you to celebrate Pi Day on March 14th. Let's start with Pi, shall we?

Pi is an irrational and transcendental number, and boasts over one trillion digits behind its decimal point. But don't worry, as long as you can remember 3.14 (just like in 3/14 - March 14th), you're golden! If you can remember that Pi is most commonly used with 5 digits behind its decimal point (3.14159), then you should take one of our advanced math classes. Pi comes in handy to solve geometric problems, specifically those involving circles (Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius). You can find out a lot more about Pi and Pi Day right here. Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page if you plan on celebrating, and which kind of pie you'll be eating. 

And now for some interesting and fascinating math facts (all facts found on Make me Genius):

• The word 'mathematics' comes from the Greek máthēma, which means learning, study, science.
• The name 'zero' derives from the Arabic word sifr which also gave us the English word 'cipher' meaning 'a secret way of writing' .
• Googol (meaning & origin of Google brand ) is the term used for a number 1 followed by 100 zeros and that it was used by a nine-year old, Milton Sirotta, in 1940.
• Zero is the only number that can’t be represented in Roman numerals.
• Arabic people were the first to use the modern number system.
• The word hundred is derived from the word “hundrath”, which actually means 120 and not 100.
• The most popular favourite number is 7.
• If you write out pi to two decimal places, backwards it spells “pie”

If you have any favourite or additional math facts, we'd love to hear about them! Happy Math Month!

There's one more thing.... Actually, there are eight! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 new courses at SCIDES! We now offer Aboriginal Leadership 10, 11, and 12, a new and improved French 12 course, Business Computer Applications 11, Cosmetology 12, Early Childhood Education 12, and Theatre, Cinema & Film Production 12. Most of the new courses are board approved, and can count as your electives towards graduation! Chat with one of our advisors to find out more.