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STEM Project~Straw Bridges
$5.95
This Straw Bridges STEM project is good anytime during the school year. It is a hands-on STEM activity that will keep your students engaged while working in small groups of 3 or 4 to build the strongest bridge in the classroom using straws, masking tape, cups, and yarn.
Included is 3 pages of reflection questions with enough space to record their responses. To save paper, your students could record the questions and responses in their Math/Science journals.
By the end of this activity, your students will have a deeper understanding of teamwork, engineering, problem solving, patience, support structures, balance, and more!
This file includes:
· Color Photos of several bridges (Arch, Beam, Cable-stayed, Suspension)
· Facts about different bridges
· Pictures showing student engagement
· 7 Step Design Process Form
· Student sample of Design Process Form
· Teacher Directions
· Student notes on Scale, Scale Factor
· 3 pages of Guiding Questions or Homework Reflection
· Student sample of Reflection pages
· Answer Key of possible answers
· Mini-signs to print and display with the bridge models after testing car strength
· Rubric for scoring each Team’s model bridge
Differentiation:
For struggling students, you could use 1 set of Reflection Questions for the entire group instead of each student having his/her own set of questions. Also, page 3 could be used as challenge questions (regarding Scale Ratios)
This digital download is a PDF file.