2nd Grade Gets an Engineering Challenge

For the second semester, we are looking at man-made structures.  I asked the students to build a bridge that spanned a gap between two tables in the classroom.  The bridge could only be built using straws and paperclips, and it would have to hold a dictionary when it was finished.  It was fun to watch the students collaborating on different ideas for the bridge.  Mr. Borski, who was Watchdog for the day, got to help, too.  One thing that I hadn’t taught the students yet was the power of triangles, but they slowly discovered this on their own.  Unfortunately, the bridge did not get built – yet.  The students agreed that more learning would be needed to help them come up with a design.  Then we talked about different types of bridges and made the connection between beam bridges and the bridge they were trying to build.