The world record for largest pizza ever baked was set in 1990.

It is part of human nature to compete, and to try to improve upon the previous performances of oneself or others in a wide variety of feats of endeavor. For more than fifty years, Guinness World Records has been keeping track of and making public the many attempts by people to outdo one another, as well as the many fascinating facts and figures about superlatives (biggest, fastest, longest, etc.) from the worlds of nature, science and more.

On this date in 1990, one such superlative was achieved. In Norwood, South Africa, the management and staff of the Norwood Hypermarket collaborated to create and bake the world’s largest pizza. The ingredients included 9,920 pounds of flour, 3,968 pounds of cheese and 1,984 pounds of tomatoes. This pizza was a mere 11.5 feet larger in diameter than the pizza that had previously set the record just six months earlier in Singapore.

Xpeditions
Geography of Pizza (3–5) is a lesson designed to help students understand spatial organization by examining the distribution of local services and the routes people can take to get to them. In the lesson, students research the pizza restaurants located in their local town and complete mapping activities to learn about location and competition that can result from more than one service being located within a given region.

Illuminations
Exploring the Value of the Whole (3–5) is one of a series of lessons on fractions in which students explore relationships between parts of a whole. Students consider the size or value of the same fraction when different "wholes" are compared.

Understanding Rational Numbers and Proportions (6–8) includes six activities centered on situations involving rational numbers and proportions that students encounter during a fictitious trip to a bakery. In activities similar to dividing a pizza into slices, students consider concepts such as partitioning a unit into equal parts, the quotient interpretation of fractions, the area model of fractions, determining fractional parts of a unit not cut into equal-sized pieces, equivalence, unit prices and multiplication of fractions; all of these are presented in a real-world setting.

In the unit Pizza, Pizza! (3–5), students participate in activities in which they focus on gathering and interpreting data about pizza as a basis for integrating mathematics, health and social studies. The lessons include an activity sheet for parents to use with their children, three class-activity sheets and a data sheet.

Science NetLinks
There's nothing like the taste and smell of fresh-baked pizza taken right out of the oven. But when you heat up the leftover slices, the flavor often isn't quite the same. You'll find out why in the Science Update Pizza Cheese (6–12).

EconEdLink
In Competition: Pizza! (3–5), students identify competing businesses in their community by understanding marketplace competition. They discuss how businesses compete and predict how the opening of a second pizza shop in a small town might affect prices, profits, service and quality.