Summary
Grade Range
2nd
Group Size
4 students
Active Time
80 minutes
Total Time
80 minutes
Area of Science
Materials Science
Civil Engineering
Key Concepts
Material properties, strength, flexibility, engin
Credits
Svenja Lohner, PhD, Science Buddies
Ben Finio, PhD, Science Buddies
Video narration by Jennifer E Paz
This activity was inspired by Prof. Margot Vigeant of Bucknell University.
Special thanks to Cynthia Burke and Chris Bell for helpful discussions about this activity.
Pricing
Free for a limited time thanks to individual donors
Overview
Bridges are made of many different materials: steel, stone, wood and even rope. How do engineers decide which materials to use? In this activity, your students will learn about material properties, test the strength and flexibility of several materials, and use their test information to predict which material will result in the strongest bridge. They will test their hypotheses by buiding simple bridges from each material and determining which bridge can hold the most weight.
Learning Objectives
- Know that different materials have different properties.
- Interpret the results of an experiment to determine which material is best suited for an intended purpose.
- Understand that different material properties are suited to different purposes.
Materials
For each student group:
- Sheets of thin paper like printer or construction paper, 8.5 by 11 inches (3)
- Sheets of aluminum foil, 8.5 by 11 inches (3)
- Sheets of wax paper or parchment paper, 8.5 by 11 inches (3)
- Sheets of thick paper like cardstock or cut-up manila folder, 8.5 by 11 inches (3)
- Any coins of the same kind (about 100)
- Tape
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Glue
- Scissors
For each student:
For teacher preparation:
- Two stacks of books for each student group. Each stack should be about 2 inches high.
- Ruler
- Tape
- Scissors
Prep Work
- Cut all of the building materials (thin paper, thick paper, aluminum foil, and wax or parchament paper) to be the same dimensions as a standard sheet of printer paper (8.5 by 11 inches in the United States; adjust as needed in other countries).
- Set up a bridge testing station for each student group. At each test station, set up two stacks of books 10 inches (about 25 centimeters) apart. The height of the book stacks should be around 2 inches (about 5 centimeters). Use tape to mark where the book stacks should be placed, as shown below. This will help students re-adjust the location of the book stacks in case they get shifted during testing.
- Print out a worksheet for each student.
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