Building Bridges In Grayson

Innovation was alive and well at Grayson Elementary School Friday as focus students got to show off bridges they had constructed using skills they’ve learned in the classroom. 

“These are fourth and fifth-grade gifted students and we challenged them to use creativity to reconstruct a bridge, but they also got to use their math, science and social studies (history) skills to research the bridge they wanted to construct,” said focus teacher Susan Wilson. “There were individual bridges and team projects where bridges were built under certain specifications. We’re going to put those bridges to the test next week.” 

Wilson said in the team projects, the students were given a budget with “play” money and a list of products to purchase with that budget – toothpicks, glue, etc., and they had to decide amongst the team what products would work best under the specifications to build the strongest, most cost-effective bridge.

“For the individual bridges the students had to start with history and research the bridge they wanted to reconstruct,” said Donna Ward, also a focus teacher at Grayson Elementary School.

Parents and other students were invited to cruise the showroom and ask the students about the project, why they chose the particular bridge they did and how it was constructed. Historical bridges were reconstructed by the students with more than one Golden Gate Bridge on display as well as bridges from other parts of the world, including Japan and Scotland. There were also drawbridges and even a bridge with lights across it - constructed by Michael Pococha, 11.

“My dad and grandfather helped me with the lights - they’re work in electrical,” he said. 

Eddie Ching was proud of the reconstruction of the Jambatan Pulau Penang Bridge in Malaysia, "constructed from Balsa wood, hot glue, paint and decorative materials," by his granddaughter Priscilla Lin.

“I’m her Grampa,” he said proudly.

Sean Floyd also reached back to his family roots for his reconstruction of the Fifth of Forth Bridge from Scotland. 

Fifth-grade student Melina Maleknia, 11, said the project was fun and educational.

“I like designing and making things and we also had to work as a team,” said four-grader Grace Scurtz, 10. “The team had to decide which type of bridge we thought was the strongest. We decided to do trusses on a bridge but since we could only use Elmer’s glue and it didn’t hold very well, we had to lay the trusses down.” 

For the students who participated in the team projects, the fun part will come next week when they get to find out just how accurate their load calculations were. 

“We going to run tests to see which team’s bridge holds up best under load,” Wilson said, adding, “We are so proud of all our students.”