This page contains a summary of the activities from the 2018 Bridge Engineering Teacher Workshop. All the resources from the workshop can be found here. For more information on the workshop or ABC-UTC Workforce Development activities, please contact David Garber.
Thank you to all the participants, sponsors, and helpers who made this event possible!
- ISU’s InTrans (Brent Phares)
- West Marshall Elementary (Lori Tollefson)
- FIU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Atorod Azizinamini, Raheel Baksh, David Garber, Carlton Ng, Jose Velazquez)
- Education Effect (Donnie Hale)
Photographs from the Workshop
Summary of Workshop Activities
The workshop started with an introduction to camp activities and distribution of resource boxes given to participants. The resource boxes included K’nex Education Intro to Structures Bridges sets, balsa wood kits, and books for use in their classrooms or libraries.
The camp continued with an introduction to ABC by Atorod Azizinamini (Director of the ABC-UTC), engineering by Brent Phares (ISU), and the lesson plan materials by Lori Tollefson (West Marshall Elementary).
During the two days of the camp, participants were led through the different activities for the engineering modules.
Backscratcher Activity
The first hands-on activity was to build a backscratcher out of recycled materials (e.g. paper towel rolls, packing materials, cardboard, etc.) and masking tape. Each team described their backscratcher and the improvements they could make.
K’nex Bridge Building Activity
Participants all took out their K’nex kits and chose one of the 13 different bridge models to construct.
Recycled Materials Bridge Activity
Participants went back to the recycled materials and made different types of bridges.
Balsa Wood Bridge Activity
All the participants then worked together to build a 3-foot long balsa wood bridge. The balsa wood bridge was loaded with a toy car with 1-lb load and then over 10 pounds of steel plates.
Remaining Activities
Each of the groups was given one of the remaining lesson plan activities to work through themselves and then present to the rest of the participants.
Interested in Engineering First or possibly setting up workshop at your school district?
For more information on the workshop activities, Engineering First, or to inquire about a similar workshop being setup for your school district, please fill out the below form: