Building Bridges

This week during "Christmas break", we've been "studying" bridges. It all started with a class we took at a local museum a few weeks ago. During the class, we learned why people use triangles as part of their bridges. (Triangles are much stronger) We also made a toothpick & clay bridge with lots of triangles.

This week, we've been studying the 3 basic types of bridges: beam, arch, and suspension. We made models of all 3 with simple materials like index cards, straws, and dental floss. We were impressed with how much load the bridges could bear! Photo is of our suspension bridge, which held over 250 pennies before it collapsed.

For our activities, we used these 2 websites: www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorere/card_bridge.html and www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/educator/act_suspension_ho.html


We also watched a wonderful video of the collapes of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It was about 2 1/2 minutes long. Unfortunately, I can't find the website now, although I find lots of websites with shorter videos.

And, we watched a couple of videos from our library. Our favorite was called "Big Cable Bridges."

Now we're enjoying seeing what types of bridges we see as we travel around town!