Building Bridges to Literature
Posted on May 20th, 2015 by Mary Lord
Designing, building, and testing bridges can help students develop teamwork and problem-solving skills along with inspiring their interest in engineering. Such hands-on projects also can fuel an interest in reading about bridges. Here are some notable titles that might strike a chord with your budding civil and structural engineers.
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Tags: bridges, Civil Engineering, English Language Arts, literature, poetry, Structural Engineering
What do 6th and 7th graders know about where energy comes from, how much we use, and how that affects our daily lives? EnergyTrends.org is hosting a video contest for public school students to find out. Deadline is midnight May 29, 2015. 
When California’s Golden Gate Bridge opened on May 27, 1937, more than 200,000 people strolled or roller-skated across its 4,200-foot causeway. The graceful span quickly became one of America’s most iconic landmarks – including for its safety features and other engineering feats.
In this activity, student teams in grades 8 and up learn about the engineering design process and physical forces by building a bridge from a single sheet of paper and up to five paper clips that will span 20 cm and support the weight of 100 pennies. Like real engineers, teams also have limited budgets and must make trade-offs in materials.
