The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Program attempts to span new gaps
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: May 22, 2008
Lynn Cecchini is noticing a trend with her students that participate in the yearly University of Michigan Outreach Program's "Building Bridges" event.
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Her second graders play engineer for a day using bridge design software that is freely available on the web. The bridges are tested in a theoretical software environment and the kids get to see the real time results of their own bridge designs under certain conditions.
The program was written by the faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and is available to the public.
"Kids I've had in the past still use the program," Cecchini said. "My students tell me that their brother or sister still uses it and they use it too. It really is a lot of fun and it's educational."
Students are given a brief introduction, shown a 30-minute video that presents engineering, and then given a 10-minute lecture on bridge engineering, before they're given the opportunity to put their newly acquired junior engineer knowledge to the test.
The software program allows students to express themselves through their unique bridge designs, but it also gives them an opportunity to use problem solving skills in a way that isn't typical to most classrooms, according to Cecchini.
"The students would cheer and go 'wow' when their bridge design would crash or stay up, but there would always been someone there to guide them to building the best bridge, she said.
When the kids are done using the software with guidance from University of Michigan engineering graduate students , their bridges are ranking in order of cost and effectiveness when it comes to resisting adverse conditions that cause a theoretical lesser bridge to collapse.
Each year Cecchini says the program changes with the kids.
"Each class is made up of a different makeup of kids. Some years I have some really strong math students and other years I have really strong verbal kids."
She always tries to make sure the program coincides with the geometry portion of her yearly curriculum.
Dr. Jason McCormick, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, headed up the program this year. He said he was happy to take the program over from his predecessor Russell Green. He also says that the issue of fostering a love of engineering in American children so our country produces more engineering grads domestically is a chief concern.
"That is still an issue and one of the reasons why we continue to reach out to the elementary school kids," he said.
Both Cecchini and McCormick entertained the idea of making the Building Bridges program wider reaching across grades and schools throughout the district so that second graders who take to the program and the broader idea of engineering can continually experience engineering in a way that transcends book learning.
"We would like to expand it to other levels and beyond just bridges," McCormick said. He explained that his specialty is structural and earthquake engineering, which he developed and shared with students in similar programs during his time at Georgia Institute of Technology.
"The kids would probably like to see how earthquakes affect their bridge designs, particularly with the recent incident in China," McCormick said, adding that the children that he saw probably wouldn't mind trying to rise an the additional challenge of designing a bridge that could literally shake off a quake without crumbling.
McCormick also urges parents to foster interest in and pursuit of aptitudes in mathematics and science. "These really are the basis for engineering," which is probably a safe bet for a growth industry, he added - particularly structural engineers with the infrastructure challenges that the United States faces in the coming decades.
Graduate student Dave Saftner was one of the program volunteers this year. He says he started pursuing engineering in high school, but felt he could have been tapped for the career path earlier.
"I imagine there are plenty of people who have the ability," he said.
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