We had a thriving Thursday today! Our morning meeting started with sharing whether summer or winter is our favorite season.  There were quite a few winter lovers, and I am certain these over-the-top hot days may be contributing to that 😉

Our ASK question today was “How can we use our knowledge of materials, different bridge types, and the Engineering Design Process to design a strong, stable bridge?”

This question gives us solid footing as we dive into discussion and hands-on activities and anchors our thinking throughout the day.

Naturally, before we began building, we needed to think like a civil engineer and ask ourselves what civil engineers should think about when imagining and planning a bridge design. So many wonderful responses were given that we ran out of room on our paper! They were firing off excellent responses such as “how big the span must be”, “what the bridge is going to be used for”, “what materials need to be used”, “the forces acting upon the structure”, and so much more.  This was a great time of discussion and reflection that spilled over into their own imagining and planning time later in the day.

One of the constraints on our builds today was the limited materials to use. Therefore, we brainstormed and discussed the properties of each material, how the material can change, and how that material could be used in their own design. Our materials today consisted of plastic straws, craft sticks, copy paper, index cards, paper clips, yarn, and tape.  Having only certain materials to use allows us to analyze how each material can change or work together to create a stable and sturdy structure.

We enjoyed a brain break by reading the story The Most Magnificent Thing, which I highly recommend checking out at the library on your next visit. This story teaches us to persevere in the face of frustration and to keep trying when our idea doesn’t work the first time. Sometimes the idea in our head doesn’t turn out exactly as we imagined, and that can be very frustrating.  Our story offered great perspective and context for us to springboard our own building challenge today.  “We can do hard things” was our motto and is built on moments like today!

After lunch, we discussed the criteria for our bridges. Each bridge had to span 15 inches and be 4 ½ inches tall for a “barge” to safely travel under. Additionally, the bridges needed to be able to allow a toy car to safely travel across and be strong enough to hold the weight of the metal nuts we applied. The students had time to imagine and journal their own ideas for a bridge design.   Once these ideas were completed then the students partnered up and used their individual ideas to create an idea with another classmate. They did great with this!

After these steps of the Engineering Design Process were complete (imagine and plan), we were finally able to begin construction! That is always the highlight of the day! We spent the afternoon building, testing, and improving our beam, suspension, arch, and deep beam designs!

We enjoyed a quick brain break watching a 5-minute video of Curious George building a bridge for some baby chicks to cross back to the mother hen when they got stuck on an “island” in the pond. This gave us quite the chuckle!  But each little engineer was quite ready to get back to work, so that was all the “brain-breaking” they wanted this afternoon!

Table Talk:

We are building more than literal bridges this week as we work with partners, communicate our ideas, listen to others, and compromise towards one common goal.

Have a wonderful evening!

Warmly,

Mrs. Lett