Technology and Tourism

In our classroom, we made some very amazing bridges. Some of them were arch bridges and some of them were cable stayed and we also made many more kinds. While making these bridges, we learned where the tension and compression is on bridges. Also, the making of these bridges helped us communicate with our parents and helped us get our participation and communication grades up. After we built our bridges, we presented them to the grade fours. We had to tell them all about our bridges and how we built them and also why it goes with our web project. It goes with our web project because we are talking about Bridge Day in West Virginia. The people close some of the roads for the day so people for all over can come to see other people jump off the bridge into the valley. Most of the bridges can hold our weight. Some can even hold our teacher and a whole bunch of students. We would like to thank the students from West Virginia for giving us the idea and to help us grow in a new direction.

Bridges relate to our Global Virtual Classroom project because West Virginia has a tourist attraction that attracts over 100,000 people to the bridge on Bridge Day. On that day, they close the bridge to traffic so that the people can jump off the bridge. The bridge is a combination of truss and arch. That's why it can hold over 100 thousand people. By making bridges, we are learning about West Virginia's biggest attraction. Bridge day brings in 3 times more people than Friday the 13th does in Port Dover. Combination of arch and truss bridges can be really long and can have 4 traffic lanes. The New River Gorge Bridge is just that...it has 4 traffic lanes, it is the longest single steel arch span in the Western hemisphere, and it is made of a mixture of arch and truss because of its length.

Waitomo Kids made some truss bridges from popsicle sticks. Here are their photos:

Return to our Sustainable Tour.

Info and Collaboration - New Zealand, West Virginia, and Canada
Proofreading and editing - West Virginia and Canada
Photo resampling - Team Kiwi