Objective:
Students will design a virtual bridge using software. Students will produce a laboratory report that includes a prediction of an expected outcome or hypothesis.
Procedure:
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Students will work in teams as described above.
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Students will research bridge design, terms, and requirements for a successful bridge.
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Students will familiarize themselves with the software.
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Students need to be adept using computer technology.
Sample Lesson
One way of executing this lesson using the above described teaching strategies is to first have students discuss general information about bridge types as timber bridge, truss bridge, and the like noting differences and similarities that they found during their research. During student report out attention should be paid to covering essential topics as tension, compression, load, cost, design, and the mathematics involved. Students should speculate about what makes a bridge fail. Since they will be designing a bridge it is essential that they know why a bridge might fail. Here is a sample of websites that may be used to show bridge collapse found on You Tube:
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· Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse "Gallopin' Gertie" - this video depicts a bridge oscillating in gale winds and shows its eventual collapse. There is no commentary with this video and it is very dramatic.
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· Tacoma Bridge Collapse - with commentary.
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· The Silver Bridge Collapse - this video includes a narration of bridge design and a conclusion that the bridge collapse was due to poor design and materials.
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· Tasman Bridge collapse - a ship collapsed this bridge.
Have students familiarize themselves with the software they will be using. For example students may use the West Point Bridge Designer 2012 (2
nd
edition). This websites entails constructing a type of truss bridge. The objective is to select a type of truss bridge from an offered list and design it so that passes a load test, with minimal cost, and its structure does not fail. It also offers a contest.
Have students make predictions about the viability of their bridge before testing.
Assessment:
Laboratory Report
A sample hypothesis could be the parameters they choose and its predictable outcome. Or, they may vary one parameter and look for patterns. See appendix 1 for a sample Laboratory Report outline but any would suffice.