Bridges support extreme weight, span distances and withstand enormous forces. STEM gives us confidence that bridges can be built successfully, and through hands-on design and experimentation, our students have bridged construction with science.
In Innovations, Year 10 students have been investigating different forces and how they affect construction design. Working on a bridge construction task, students were provided with 200 matchsticks to build a bridge to meet specific criteria for span length and height of road structure. At the completion of their constructions, the bridges are tested for how much weight they can carry until the bridge fails.
Innovations provides students with the opportunity to apply inquiry-based approaches to design, plan, and undertake investigations related to a variety of trades responding to local or global situations.