Hands on Science: McAuliffe Sixth Graders Build Bridges

Earlier this school year, sixth grade science students at the Christa McAuliffe Charter School, based in Framingham, came to the Memorial Building to hear a structural engineer speak about bridges and their importance to the public’s infrastructure, said Framingham DPW spokesperson Judi Teller.

Later in the semester, the students created one-foot bridges using Popsicle sticks, glue, and tape.

The bridges to be built needed to be functional, but also be aesthetically pleasing.

Students, working in small groups, had to build a strong enough bridge to allow a toy car to drive through it, a boat to pass under it, and withstand winds generated by a fan. Each bridge was also measured to see how much weight it could withstand, just like real bridges in Framingham, across the Commonwealth, and across the United States.

Recently, the Framingham DPW engineering department was invited to review the bridges and judge them.

The top three bridges are now on display on the second floor of the DPW office.

For several years, the McAuliffe Charter School sixth grade students have been exploring bridges as part of its science curriculum. The students not only study bridges in class, but they do field work in Boston. The students speak to experts in and outside Framingham, and then take what they learned to construct their own bridges. It is part of the regional public charter school’s exploratory learning curriculum.

The hands-on exploratory learning program is designed to make students responsible for their own learning and cultivates higher levels of student engagement.