Ladies and gentlemen, we might have the next generation of engineers in our own ICS. Yes, you read it right! Last week in my afterschool science club my kindergartners to fifth graders were faced with the challenge of constructing a bridge that was at least a foot long. Besides the length requirement, the bridge had to hold up the weight of three small hard cover books and follow one of the bridge designs I gave them; be it as simple as a beam bridge to as complicated as a cantilever bridge. Now you might be asking yourself, how did these students manage to build a bridge? Well the answer is easy, with dedication and hard work just like our school motto says. But dedication and hard work can't be everything...yes, yes, I know. The parameters for this project were broader then your typical bridge building science project because the students only had one hour to accomplish this laborious task. They were only allowed to use 100 popsicle sticks or less, tape, glue, glue dots, and two pieces of construction paper.
To my surprise, the bridges came out phenomenal and students were really engage in building them; there's nothing like hands-on learning! They really enjoyed working on the bridges and also working with their team members. By the end of the project there was even a friendly competition going on between the groups.
My students say that it reminded them of art class and that "they didn't like it, they loved it!" We are all happy campers!
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