Curated OER
Put Your Truss in Building Bridges
Students apply abstract concepts, such as stress, fulcrums, the law of gravity, and the strength of different geometric shapes. Groups of student contractors operate simulated architectural firms to create strong, economical bridges.
Curated OER
Building Bridges
Provide a comprehensive exploration of bridges and civil engineering. First, learners discuss the different types of bridges. Then, they identify the characteristics of a suspension, beam, and arch type of bridge. In addition, they learn...
Curated OER
Intro to Building Bridges
Students participate in groups to complete the best bridge. In this bridge building lesson, students are assigned a role in building the bridge. Students will have to keep to their budgets. After the bridges are built, parents will be...
Curated OER
Build a Cardboard Bridge That Can Hold Potatoes
Students identify the characteristics of a bridge and build with junk materials. In this bridge building lesson, students use cereal boxes, paper towel or toilet paper tubes and tape to create their bridges. Bridges must be a certain...
Curated OER
Bridge Building, Tension, and Compression
Students demonstrate tension and compression using real world examples. In this forces lesson, students demonstrate tension on a suspension bridge. They demonstrate compression on different roof designs.
Curated OER
Building a Bridge
Students design a bridge. In this science lesson, students research different types of bridges and create a bridge using marshmallows, toothpicks and construction paper.
Curated OER
Stable and Unstable Structures
Students consider ways to create stable bridges. In this bridge design lesson, students view pictures of bridges that have collapsed. They use the information to work in small groups creating a blueprint for a bridge of their own. Their...
Curated OER
Bridge Collapse
Young scholars read about and view a real bridge that collapsed. They examine the fundamentals of building a solid and safe bridge and then construct their own bridge model using rolled newspaper and tape.
Curated OER
Tension and Compression
Students explore the forces of tension and compression by manipulating a variety of objects, and apply what they learned in the construction of a model bridge.
Curated OER
Build and Test
Learners display what they have learned about bridges as they construct their bridge. They present their projects to the rest of the class. They compare and contrast the construction of the bridges.
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Bridges
A project where students design, build, and a test a bridge made out of file folders. Students will use a force sensor to measure how strong their model bridge is. Then students will compare their results to classmates to conclude what...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Keeping You in Suspens(ion)
Find out the different strengths of two types of bridges, beam and suspension, by building your own. This Science Buddies science project gives you the means to find out. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up consistently...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Bridges That Can Take a Shake!
Building a bridge in San Francisco has to take into account the possibilites of earthquakes. This Science Buddies science project asks that you use different virtual bridge designs to withstand virtual earthquakes. The Science Buddies...
Yale University
Yale New Haven Teachers Institute: The Physics of Bridges
Introduce students to physics concepts that engineers use when building a bridge. This curriculum unit includes concepts such as Newton's Third Law, stress on a material, vibration, and resonance. Unit includes lectures, lab activities,...
PBS
Pbs: Building Big: Bridges
A collection of resources about bridges that includes basic facts about bridges, challenges faced by bridge builders, famous bridges from around the world, and a lab that helps you understand how different forces affect bridge...
Museum of Science
Museum of Science and Industry: Online Science: Activities: Straw Bridges
An investigation where students design and build a bridge, using only straws and tape, that must support a weight.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Bridge Types: Tensile & Compressive Forces
Students explore how tension and compression forces act on three different bridge types. Using sponges, cardboard and string, they create models of beam, arch and suspension bridges and apply forces to understand how they disperse or...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Straw Bridges
Working as engineering teams, students design and create model beam bridges using plastic drinking straws and tape as their construction materials. Their goal is to build the strongest bridge with a truss pattern of their own design,...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Truss Destruction
Students work within constraints to construct model trusses and then test them to failure as a way to evaluate the relative strength of different truss configurations and construction styles. Each student group uses Popsicle sticks and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Building Our Bridge to Fun!
Students identify different bridge designs and construction materials used in modern day engineering. They work in construction teams to create paper bridges and spaghetti bridges based on existing bridge designs. Students progressively...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Feel the Stress
Working individually or in groups, students explore the concept of stress (compression) through physical experience and math. They discover why it hurts more to poke themselves with mechanical pencil lead than with an eraser. Then they...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Building Towards the Future
This curricular unit introduces students to basic Civil Engineering concepts in an exciting and interactive manner. Bridges and skyscrapers, the two most visible products of Civil Engineers, will be discussed in depth. Students will have...
Science Museum, London
Making the Modern World: Bridges
Learn all about bridges in this interactive learning module.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Construction Technologies: Construct the Strongest Bridge
In this activity, students will work in pairs to create three simple types of bridges. They will observe quantitatively how the bridges work under load and why engineers use different types of bridges for different places. They also will...