Project 2: Earthquake and Boise River Bridge Design - A Project-based STEM +Computing Inquiry (90 minutes in total including 10 minutes break in the middle of the session) Virtual Field Trip to Learn about the Design and Design Considerations of Bridges
Overall guiding question: How can we build a bridge for the Boise River that is strong enough to resist earthquake forces?
Sub questions: 1. How do we design and build a strong bridge to counter an earthquake for Boise river?
2. What are the considerations for building a strong bridge?
Learning outcome:
List and describe the bridge design process like a real bridge engineer does.
CT component embedded in student activity:
Data Collection: Students will gather information on Boise river through field trip
Communication: Students will keep a journal and make a presentation to the class
Interactive Session with Bridge Engineers: 60 minutes
A bridge engineer will come and have a face-to-face session with the students. Students will watch the videos of the Capital Bridge, Friendship Bridge, and the Broadway Bridge near the Boise State Universality's campus and interact with a bridge engineer.
1. Virtual Field Trip to Capital Bridge
2. Virtual Field Trip to Friendship Bridge
3. Virtual Field Trip to Broadway Bridge
Please print out this handout for students to guide their in asking the questions for a bridge engineer.
Watch this video presentation of the Broadway bridge.
As part of this activity students should identify:
The structural concepts used in the bridge design and how they were applied
The types of forces acting on the bridge and how the design accommodated them
The materials used in the construction and why they were used in preference to other available materials
The properties that made these materials suitable for use in the bridge design
Why it was built on its present site
Why the particular type of bridge design was chosen for this site
The challenges facing the engineers when creating the design for the bridge and how they were solved
The alternative designs that were considered and why were they rejected
How the bridge was constructed, the problems encountered and how the engineers solved them. How the construction engineers prevented it from collapsing before it was completed
The need for the bridge and whom it serves
How the building of the bridge impacted the local environment, for example:
Were the local communities impacted by increased or reduced traffic/quality of life issues; what effects did its construction have on businesses in the area?
What was the impact of the construction of the bridge and new access roads on local habitats and wildlife? Did air and noise pollution from vehicles increase?
If, in their opinion, the bridge is a successful structure, they should be prepared to justify their answer
Student Led Presentation: 15 minutes
The students discuss the design process of a bridge and the different things needed to consider when designing a bridge based on the knowledge acquired in today's and previous sessions. This session could be best facilitated by the bridge engineer(s).
End of Session Reflection and Debriefing: 5-10 minutes
Using the Problem Solving Process diagram, the teacher will ask students to identify what kind of problem solving skills/process/computational thinking they used in this session and explain how they used it. The following are some sample questions that can guide the debrief.
What did I learn today?
What problem solving skills/processes or CT components I used today in this diagram?
How did you use the problem solving skills/processes/CT components?
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