Wendy, our Mathagony Aunt, carefully folds the label from a can into three equal pieces and places it across the diameter of the container. It fits three and a fraction times and works for any size of can. Jacqui Edwards at Vyners school in Hillingdon uses this idea to introduce pi to her Year 8 foundation set. Maths is not one of their stronger subjects, but they respond well to the approach. They start to investigate the relationship between circumference and diameter, and one boy decides to cut the label into three equal pieces, without being prompted by the teacher. She called this his magic moment.

Video Series: KS3 Maths
Release Date 2005