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Building a Bridge to Your Child's Future
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Every parent knows a good education can be a bridge to your child's successful future, but did you know that building bridges – literally – can be an integral part of that good education?
Designing and building bridges is a popular project in classrooms throughout the world. It's an activity at which children of all ages can succeed and, perhaps more importantly, enjoy. But what exactly do children learn from designing, building and testing bridges?
Science: The obvious academic areas related to bridge building are physics and engineering, so it's no wonder most of the students who participate in the International Bridge Building Contest begin at high school competitions organized by their physics teachers. (High school competitions are the first step in the International Bridge Building Contest, leading to regional competitions and then the international finals.) A few high school competitions are organized by shop teachers, says John Kallend, professor of Materials Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology, who coordinates the international competition, "but overwhelmingly it's physics teachers because they can tie it in very easily with the concepts of force and vectors and many of the things the students are learning in physics." Bridge building also helps students learn about efficiency, an important aspect of engineering, as well as the properties of different materials, balance, and scientific methods involved in testing their designs.
Mathematics: Bridges in the International Bridge Building Contest are judged based on the ratio of maximum force (the most force that can be applied before the bridge fails) to total bridge weight. The challenge is to balance the greatest strength with the lowest weight, so students are constantly practicing math skills in determining the efficiency of their designs. Even if students aren't contemplating efficiency ratios, there are numerous math skills involved in bridge building -- from measuring materials to working with geometric shapes and angles -- for students at every level.
Social Studies: While bridge building can seem, on the surface, to be focused solely on the physical sciences, many teachers use the activity as a jumping off point for lessons in history, geography, urban planning and beyond. You can leverage your child's interest in bridge building to research famous bridges and to discuss the types of bridges (suspension, arch, girder, truss, cantilever, cable-stayed and moveable), how bridge building has changed throughout history, and why bridges are important economically and socially. You can visit bridges in your local area, and make a point of comparing familiar bridges to those you see while traveling. Encourage your young engineers to write about what they learn through research and observation.
In addition to the core competencies outlined above, bridge building can offer two other motivating factors:
Fun: Bridges are a natural addition to any pretend city your kids create, and a good bridge always makes playing with toy cars more exciting. Model train enthusiasts enjoy building scale model bridges to make their railways more interesting and realistic.
...and Profit: If your kids get serious about bridge building, you'll want to check out the International Bridge Building Contest. You can find regional competitions on their website, and if you don't see one in your vicinity, Kallend suggests asking a teacher, scout leader, or other group coordinator to consider starting one. (Instructions also are on the website.) Prizes for regional contests vary from region to region and year to year, but at the Chicago regional competition students typically are awarded gift certificates of up to $100 to local electronics stores. Prizes for the international competition have included laptop computers and iPods in addition to a half-tuition scholarship to the Illinois Institute of Technology (awarded annually, contingent on the student meeting IIT's admissions requirements).
The educational benefits of exploring bridge building are immense, and the best part is, kids love it! They gain valuable skills that can be useful in any number of disciplines, whether it's engineering, physics, mathematics, computer science or beyond. "All of these require the same kind of thought processes," says Kallend, "logical, thorough, attention to detail, intuition guided by scientific principles. Those are the attributes that will make a successful model bridge builder and those are the attributes that will make a successful engineer or mathematician or even a medical doctor."
Here are a few of our favorite bridge building kits to get you started:
- Truss Bridge Building Kit
- Bridge Mania Building Kit
- Uberstix Starter Kit
- Our Amazing Bridges Architecture Kit
- Ubertropolis
Home > Resources for our Science Kits > Articles on Science Learning and Science Kits > Building a Bridge to Your Child's Future
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