Activities
In this unit, there will be a wide variety of strategies, presentations of material and activities. The first activity will be the "Think-Pair-Share" activity described earlier in which students will brainstorm and then share all of the possible purposes of bridges that they can. Their lists can go on the classroom "Bridge Wall. Following will be discussions of the forces involved with bridge building along with several hands-on demonstrations illustrating these forces along with examples of bridges. A diverse collection of bridges through history will be discussed using a Power Point presentation, stressing the rationale for creating bridges and the myriad factors that are considered in the planning and building of bridges. These will include but not be limited to community needs, locations, materials, climate, weather, cost, and other considerations that will be explored in more depth.
The students will watch the 60 minute PBS Building Big Bridges video that features David Macaulay, author of The Way Things Work, in the classroom. (29) Since our class periods are 90 minutes, there will adequate time for discussion of the film's highlights afterwards. The following day I will take the students to one of our computer labs where I will first show them the 1940s footage of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster on the YouTube website (30). Then the students will visit and experiment with one of the interactive websites that goes along with video. (5)
The structures inspired by objects in nature created by Santiago Calatrava will be explored through a Power Point presentation. The elegant and creative bridges of Santiago Calatrava will also be viewed. The nature studies and ideas for inventions of Leonardo da Vinci will also be studied. Included will be the system of proportion and measurement used in Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. I will pass around some Euros (European coins) that I have that feature Leonardo's Vitruvian Man represented on one side, leading the discussion into the enduring power of symbols. That can further lead into a discussion of the mathematical Fibonacci numbers and their use in architecture. The beautiful spiral of a seashell can be used as an example for the application of these numbers.
For homework, students should bring a list of every bridge that they encounter on the way to school. On another day, they will write a reaction to the quote by Calatrava concerning sculpture and architecture that they will copy off of the board. (17)
Students will study the natural structure found in leaves and apply their findings to the structures of possible bridge designs, using Calatrava for inspiration. They will also use their peers and themselves to apply the structure of the human body in the same way. The classroom skeleton will also be available for inspiration. The students will walk outside for a short field trip to study and sketch things in nature as the inspiration or link to their own bridge designs. They will experiment with a series of sketches, transforming their objects into bridge structures, selecting one that they can actually transition successfully. The use of scaling and graph paper will be explained and demonstrated. Students will draw their designs on graph paper and plan the execution of the building of their bridge models. Then the students will actually build their bridges, assessing their progress during the building process and then applying those evaluative skills to their final results.
The unit will culminate with an art exhibit of the students' sketches and their bridge models, complete with invitations to the opening night reception for students, their families, the school staff and community members.
Optional or possible additional activities can include inviting an architect or city planner to talk with the class, examining string instruments for their relationship to cable-stayed and suspension bridges, and having the students paint a dramatic watercolor wash background with a silhouette of their own bridge. The similarities between the deceptively simple sculptures of Brancusi and Calatrava can also be explored, resulting in a smooth abstracted sculpture inspired by nature that is carved or modeled by each student.
The following are three lesson plans that give more detail than those of the preceding activities.
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