It towered for centuries over Teotihuacán, the largest city in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Today, Mexico’s famed Pyramid of the Sun risks slowly sinking and crumbling like a sand castle.

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Filed under: Special Features | Comments Off on Hidden Weakness

Tags: construction, pyramid, sand, Structural Engineering, Tiotihuacan, UNESCO World Heritage Site

Tufts University students took to the beach for a fun, hands-on lesson in engineering design, creativity, and materials science.

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Filed under: K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features | Comments Off on Engineering a Sandcastle

Tags: Civil Engineering, Engineering Design Process, materials science, sandcastle construction, Structural Engineering, Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach

Students in grades 3 to 5 work in groups to design a structure that will withstand and protect people from tornadoes. Each group then creates a poster with the name of their engineering firm and a picture of their structure. Finally, each group presents their posters to the class.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades K-5, Grades K-5, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Build it Better!

Tags: Civil Engineering, Design, Disaster, Earth Science, National Severe Storms Laboratory, NOAA, poster, STEAM, Structural Engineering, Tornadoes, Weather

Hurricanes, earthquakes, and other destructive events offer timely “teachable moments” about the role of engineers in improving weather forecasts and reducing the toll from natural disasters. eGFI Teachers’s collection of activities, feature articles, and other resources can help you integrate engineering into your classes – and inspire the next generation of “crisis” engineers.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, Grades K-5, Lesson Plans, Special Features | Comments Off on Disaster Engineering

Tags: Army Corps of Engineers, build, building, Class Activities, data, Disaster relief, drought, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, erosion, forces, hurricane, Hurricane Maria, measure, Mining, motion, National Guard, natural disasters, Physics, rescue, storm, Structural Engineering, Teacher Resources, Technology, tornado, Weather, Web Resources

Students in grades 3 to 5 use engineering problem solving to create structures from paper, straws, tape, and paper clips that can support the weight of at least one textbook. For the second trial, they examine examples of successful buildings in history and try again.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades K-5 | Comments Off on Shapes of Strength

Tags: building, construction engineering, Design, History, learning from failure, materials, parthenon, pyramids, shapes, skyscraper, STEAM, strength, Structural Engineering, Taipei 101

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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Filed under: For Teachers, Special Features | Comments Off on Building Bridges to Literature

Tags: bridges, Civil Engineering, English Language Arts, literature, poetry, Structural Engineering

The world’s most visited man-made monument turned 125 this year. Built for the Paris World’s Fair of 1889, French engineer Gustave Eiffel’s famous tower attracted scorn before it opened. But its role as a research lab for weather, aviation, and telecommunications helped ensure its longevity.

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Tags: Civil Engineering, construction, Eiffel Tower, Gustave Eiffel, Structural Engineering, tower

Structural engineer Emma Cardini has inspected some pretty impressive facades, including the Chicago Tribune Tower’s ornate spires and the Bridge of the Americas in Panama. Still, nothing compares with the capital bird’s eye view she literally enjoys on her latest job: rappelling down the marble sides of the Washington Monument to assess the damage from late August’s 5.8-magnitude earthquake.

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Filed under: Special Features | 3 Comments »

Tags: Architecture, Civil Engineering, difficult access team, earthquake, National Park Service, rappelling, rope, Structural Engineering, vertical engineers, Washington Monument, WJE

In this short, fun activity for students in grades 2 to 12, teams learn about the engineering design process, including constraints on time and materials, by building the tallest free-standing tower out of pipe-cleaners.

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Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, K-12 Outreach Programs | Comments Off on Pipe-Cleaner Towers

Tags: build, Building Design, Civil Engineering, Class Activities, Design, design contest, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, North Carolina State University, pipe cleaner challenge, pipe cleaners, STEM education, Structural Engineering, tower