Building Toothpick Bridges (Math Project Series)

Rating:
Summary: A Perennially Popular Project!
Review: Although I have made a number of adaptations to this project, the basic concept is excellent as written. (Example of adaptation: we make it non-competitive by setting a target weight for bridges to hold instead of testing all bridges to destruction. Everyone can feel successful, not just the team with the strongest bridge.) Students in middle school can learn a lot about structures, measurement, budgeting, planning, design, and teamwork from this activity. It's always one that our fifth and sixth grade students at The Miquon School recall fondly years later. Although it is presented in the book's title as a math activity, we use it as part of a larger study of structures in social studies -- a good way to cross discipline boundaries.

Rating:
Summary: Building Toothpick Bridges
Review: I had to build a bridge out of toothpicks once and this book helped me more than anything. If you need help at all you should get the book. It is fabulous.

Rating:
Summary: Limited uses
Review: I read this book hoping for a tool to help my 8th grade students design and build complex toothpick bridges in science class. This book is a great interdisciplinary tool and I have seen web sites for 5th graders where the book was the center of a great unit. However, the bridges in the book are simple project composed of two sides and a few connecting toothpicks. If you want a complex science project fro older kids, forget this book. Get it as a unit involving many subjects in a multiple-subject classroom.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! I wet my pants
Review: Wow, this was an excellent book, and i wet my pants reading it!