Donna Hunt's students show off
their prized toothpick bridge.
Winning Suggestion
By Donna Hunt, Teacher
STEM Academy at Texas Middle School; Texarkana, Texas
Editor’s Note: Seventh-grade science teacher
Donna Hunt of Texarkana, Texas, won a Balsa
Wood MegaPack valued at $60 for her photo
submission of her students and their toothpick
bridge creations to the Pitsco Facebook page.
Similar challenges and contests will be coming
soon at www.facebook.com/pitscoeducation.
I have been teaching for 29 years, and
I’ve come to believe that the real-world
problems for which students construct
a solution, create an environment where
learning content is relevant, and authentic
learning takes place.
To quote one of my students, “This
project made engineering for earthquakes and
disasters so in-your-face for real, Mrs. Hunt, I
loved it!” I use the toothpick bridge engineering
project as part of the catastrophic events unit.
Some of the questions that guide the unit are:
- Are building codes for architects the
same in Texas as California?
- Why are building codes even necessary?
- Is giving a company with the lowest bid
on a job always the right thing to do?
The students form a company, sign
contracts, and are challenged to build a bridge
within the budget. It must be at least a 14-inch
span, completed within six class periods, and
capable of supporting three full soda cans. I
take six different grades on this project, and
the students vote on several categories for
winners. Anytime students can ask their own
questions,
form their own
hypotheses,
work with
materials, and
test their own
ideas, the
concepts that
I as a teacher
am trying to teach, connect with their world,
and retention actually happens.
Our seventh-grade STEM program has
an engineering component each six weeks,
and the students really enjoy participating –
sometimes competing for prizes with their
engineering projects.