Lesson Title: Building and Busting Bridges
Teacher: William Batkins
Target Grade/Subject: Design
Length: 2 weeks
Summary
This project has students exploring the world of bridges and trusses. Students are engaged in a number of activities that allow them to research general knowledge about engineering, explore a variety of successful designs, and interact with software that allows them to create their own designs. Students use their designs to build their own trusses and test the efficiency of their bridge design. From the initial test, students determine the structural issues, and rebuild to create an more structurally sound truss.
TIPC Ratings
Students utilize research skills in learning about structural design and document their findings. Students seek out the information required to complete the authentic task of building a bridge per the specifications of the TSA structural engineering guidelines. Students then apply what they have learned to already existing bridges to come up with ideas on their own construction.
Students work in self-selected, normed groups to complete the task. Students utilize any method of communication and collaboration they feel comfortable using such as googledocs, facebook, edmodo, email and texting. Collaboration is demonstrated in the in-class creation of the final product and through documentation of the contributions each student made to the overall project.
Students utilized research, communication, and critical thinking and problem solving to determine the best possible way to build a structurally sound bridge. Students use available technologies to aid in the creation and assessment of their bridge designs. By going through the process twice, students reflect on the process and are given additional time to make changes and rebuild.
Students are given the authentic task of creating a structurally sound bridge using a set of predetermined materials. Students have the freedom to use any available resources to determine the style of the bridge. Once created, students reflect on the process and begin again.
