Curated OER
Suspension Bridges: Connecting Lives
Middle schoolers explore bridges. In this bridge lesson, students design and build a suspension bridge after visiting related websites and reviewing famous bridges in non-fiction books. Middle schoolers follow the...
Curated OER
Anything I Can Do You Can Do Better
Middle schoolers complete a two-week unit involving design and construction concepts. They watch a PowerPoint presentation about geometric shapes, draw the fourteen shapes incorporated in bridge construction, and in small groups design,...
Curated OER
Construction Technologies: Construct the Strongest Bridge
Students investigate how engineers use different types of bridges for different places. In small groups they design and construct bridges for three different scenarios, and answer a series of investigating questions applied to the...
Curated OER
Cross That Bridge
Students create paper bridges. In this geometry and architecture activity, groups use legal paper and paper clips to design a bridge that will hold 100 pennies. Links to mini-lessons exploring stability of different geometric figures and...
Curated OER
Bridge Building
Students explore bridges and how they are constructed. After reviewing materials on bridges, they work in groups to record their findings. They design and construct a bridge using K'NEX or straws and predict which bridge will hold the...
Other
Bay Bridge 360: The San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge
Interactive website, with videos, aerial views, photographs, and slideshows, documents the actions taken to replace and stabilize portions of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge against future seismic activity.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Build a Bridge
Survey potential bridge sites, research bridge design, and select the right bridge for the right location in this interactive activity from the NOVA: "Super Bridge" Web site.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: The Bridge Challenge
This interactive activity, from the Web site developed for the PBS series "Building Big," use your knowledge of bridge design to match the right bridge location in a fictitious city.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Triangles: Designing a Straw Bridge
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast tries to design and build a bridge made out of drinking straws that will support the weight of 200 pennies. [4:02]
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
The Math Forum: Seventh Grade Mathematics: Data Sense
This site has some interesting ways to collect and evaluate data. There are some activities about note taking, spreadsheets, surveys, and a cool bridge construction project. Teachers may want to use this site as a resource for some...
Other
Ties Magazine: Model Bridges
One high school's curriculum tackles the challenge of bridge construction. In this article, you will read one student's thought and design processes as well as some of the leading questions he was asked to consider.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Designing Bridges
Middle schoolers learn about the types of possible loads, how to calculate ultimate load combinations, and investigate the different sizes for the beams (girders) and columns (piers) of simple bridge design. Students learn the steps that...
Other
Building Mighty Mac
This resource highlights the construction of the Mackinac Bridge, a famous landmark in Michigan.
Other
Building Mighty Mac
This resource highlights the construction of the Mackinac Bridge, a famous landmark in Michigan.