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PROVO — Hearing the term Pi Day probably conjures up images of fresh-baked fruit and flaky crust, as pie fans and math nerds unite to celebrate the date matching the first three numbers of pi: 3.14.
And for math fanatic and BYU math education professor Doug Corey, Pi Day is the perfect day to celebrate the real-life application of math.
To answer the infamous question students love to ask their math teachers — "When will I ever use this?" — Corey started Math the World, a YouTube channel dedicated to bringing everyday-life context to math.
Learning algebra, probability or how to calculate force might seem boring in the classroom, but Corey uses them to answer interesting questions such as which items could kill you when tossed off skyscrapers or how much water is needed to create the perfect bottle flip?
Corey's videos apply theoretical math concepts to real-world problems in sports, politics, business and everyday occurrences to teach students how to apply math in day-to-day situations and show the importance of mathematics.
"I began to use the math I was teaching in class to answer these questions, and it totally changed the flavor of the class," Corey said. "Students stopped asking when they'd use math in real life because now they were seeing it in action."
Corey said once, he and his students used a mathematical strategy to examine a controversial BYU football play and found the numbers validated the coach's decision.
Many students face a paradox where they know understanding math could be useful, but they struggle to envision the real-life applications, making them less motivated to learn and understand complex concepts, Corey said. He wants to change the way traditional math classes are taught so they aren't solely focused on concept comprehension and rote memorization, but instead foster problem-solving skills.
"Our goal is to change the way that people view mathematics," Corey said. "It's hard to change the way school curriculum is taught, but we can start making a difference this way."
Math the World has almost 12,000 subscribers since its first video was uploaded in September. A team of undergraduate math education students help Corey make the videos and run the channel.
Jennifer Canizales, a BYU graduate skilled in math education and graphic design who curates the visual content for Math the World, views the YouTube channel as a way to merge her two passions.
"It's been an awesome opportunity to use both of my disciplines that I'm passionate about to create this channel," Canizales said. "It's an important quest because most students don't get very satisfying answers about how to apply these concepts in everyday life."
In addition to the videos he makes, Corey is teaming up with undergraduate students to develop lesson plans tailored for local math teachers. By this fall, they hope to put the plans into action and ignite excitement about math in young learners to break the cycle of "math apprehension," a BYU press release said.
Not everyone can be a math hero like Corey, but at the bare minimum, Pi Day can be celebrated by eating a slice of pie and appreciating the math a baker had to do to devise the ingredient amounts and calculate the cooking time to bake the delicious treat to perfection.
