WV State Standards: Technology:21C.O.5-8.1.LS1, 21C.O.5-8.1.TT9 National Standards:  Technology: Blooms Taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis 21st Century Skills: Information and Media Literacy, Interpersonal and Collaborative, Social Responsibility, Self-direction, Accountability and Adaptability

Overview:

This lesson introduces students to the three basic types of bridges and basic bridge engineering principles, and vocabulary.  Students will be gaining informational literacy by researching famous and/or local bridges of each type.

Objective(s):

The purpose of this learning experience is to retrieve information from the internet (or other sources) to identify and differentiate the three types of bridges.  Students will electronically communicate their evaluation of the “best” type of bridge for this application.

21C.O.5-8.1.LS1 Student, when presented with a problem, identifies the information needed, uses text, people, online databases and search engines to filter relevant information efficiently, analyzes information for biases, synthesizes information gathered and creates an effective and efficient response to the problem
21C.O.5-8.1.TT9 Student uses telecommunications tools (e.g., email, web pages, blogs, discussion groups, list-servs, etc.) to learn academic content and to gather, share and publish information to various audiences.

Time Required:

One or two 45 minute class period

Pre-Requisite Skills:

Ability to use the Internet for research.

Computer with Internet access.

Computer with Internet access

Procedure:

1. Explain the problem to the students and tell them they will be playing the role of a project engineer to develop a well-constructed and cost-effective bridge over Worthington Creek.
2. Have students use the Internet to research bridge design and construction through the Bridge Over Troubled Water wiki.  Students will be guided through various activities through the PBS website Bridges, and will need to complete “The Bridge Challenge” on this site.
3. Have students add a comment to the Bridge Over Troubled Water wiki to check for understanding of characteristics of different types of bridges.

Many learning styles and intelligences will be addressed in this lesson including linguistic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, and naturalistic. 

Students will leave comments on the Bridge Over Troubled Water wiki.