Each year, Pi Day is celebrated among Mathematics departments in public schools nationally. Greater Latrobe has traditions celebrating Pi Day in the Center of Student Creativity, each year.

This year, Pi Day is extra special as the date 3/14/15 matched up with the first five digits of pi, 3.1415.

In fact, according to Mrs. Pompelia, at 9:26:54 a.m. on 3/14/15, an amazing event occured. Pi extrapolated to 10 digits, 3.141592654, and was reflected on the clocks at this exact time.

Thus, this year’s Pi Day was referred to as Super Pi Day.

Students represented Super Pi Day by wearing “Superman” Pi Day tee shirts on Friday, March 13. All T-shirts were previously sold to students interested. There were a total of 270 shirts sold. The funds from the shirts mostly went towards the shirts themselves, but the money that was left over went towards school functions such as creating a basket for Hoops for Heroes.

Like past years, in recognition of the day and to highlight the importance of math in today’s careers, math classes were invited to a panel discussion in various math-related careers and college majors in the CSC on Friday, March 13, 2015. At the end of the panel discussion, mini Cherry and Apple pies were handed to each student who attended. 800 of the fruit pies were ordered from the Food Service Department. There were 50 of the fruit pies left, which were given to the Godspell cast after their opening night performance.

“I embrace any opportunity to celebrate and appreciate math,” said Mrs. Pompelia.

In fact, Mrs. Pompelia’s AP Calculus BC and AB/BC students and the Advanced Calculus Concepts students also had the opportunity to have lunch with the speakers in the CSC to learn more about their careers.

A total of nine speakers attended the event. Some were professionals, and some were even college students.

One of the speakers was, Lauren Morlacci, former Latrobe graduate of ‘12, spoke to students about her career choice. Growing up, Lauren always enjoyed math class. Through high school, Lauren would challenge her self on harder math courses. Her senior year, she took Calculus AB/BC taught by Mrs. Pompelia. She was also involved in Kennametal’s Young Engineer Program.

After graduation, Lauren attended University of Pittsburgh where she is currently a junior. “I really like where I chose to go to college because the classes aren’t too big or too small. Theres only about 80 students in each class,” Morlacci said.

In the future, Lauren plans on interning at LNC machine company. “I look forward to the internship because it’s a small company. I’m really excited excited to being involved in work, and not just working,” said Morlacci.

Mark Schrecengost, not to mention the son of the math teacher Mr. Shrecengost, shared his story about college. Mark graduated Grove City college in 2014, and is now going to graduate school to earn his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. Mark explained to students that there are many different careers out there and to be aware of change. “Always keep your options open, you never know when things change,” said Schrecengost.

Last summer, Mark got the opportunity to intern in an AP program at the University of Pittsburgh. The program paid Mark to do mathematical research in many different forms. “It was a fun experience, and I got to meet a lot of new people,” said Schrecengost.