"Art of Bridge Construction" Lessons and Handouts

Each lesson plan is in PDF format. Select the lesson title to open the file. For the best result, do the lessons in order, ending with "Building Your Bridge."

• Push On A Rope - What happens when you push on a rope? Students push and pull on different materials to observe how they behave under tension and compression.
• Forces At Work - Students form a "human suspension bridge" to feel firsthand the tension or compression in each part of the bridge. This will give real "feel" for the forces at work.
• Stress Test - Students test some household materials to determine the maximum force they can take and calculate the failure stress of each, emphasizing that failure is an important element of testing.
• Column Quest - Students make and test paper columns to observe the relationship between the shape of an object and its strength and to understand how shape affects stability.
• Beam Team - Students on the Beam Team learn how beams work. By making and testing their own beams, they discover how the sizes and shapes of beams affect their strength.
• Concrete Beam - Exploring beams further, students create and test their own concrete beams to see why concrete alone doesn't make a very strong beam and what can be done to strengthen it in tension.
• Moment of Inertia - To measure the stiffness of a cross-sectional shape, students calculate its Moment of Inertia to numerically demonstrate what they've already seen: some shapes are much stiffer than others!
• Tower of Cards - Students build a tower using only index cards to explore how load is distributed, and they apply what they have learned about column shape and strength.
• Cables - How does a cable carry load? Why do cables take the curved shapes you see in suspension bridges? Students discover the answers to these questions as they load cables and record their observations.
• Arches - Is there a special relationship between a cable and an arch? What could it be? Students use the results from the Cables lesson to unlock this secret.
• Trusses - What is the importance of stability in structures? Why is a triangular shape more stable than a square shape? Students investigate these questions before building and testing their own trusses to understand how they carry load.
• Building Your Bridge - Students put to use everything they have learned about bridges as they design and build their own model bridge.

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