Bridge enthuses Shropshire youngsters
Youngsters at the Community College Bishops Castle took part in an engineering discovery day on 4 March.
Sixty-six Year 7 students to the challenge of constructing a bridge that spanned the width of the college hall. The students experienced bridge building at first hand, wearing hard hats, high visibility vests, gloves and goggles to ensure they conformed to health and safety requirements of a real life construction site. Students worked in teams to assemble the bridge, a scaled down version of the second Severn Crossing Cable Stay Bridge using their knowledge of D&T, Maths and Science to complete the task. After the bridge had been constructed each student had the opportunity to walk across the bridge to test their engineering skills.
The session was accompanied by learning materials introducing the students to the career opportunities engineering offers and was supported with ambassadors with a range of different engineering backgrounds.
The event was organised by ICE Wales via their 'Bridge to Schools' Project with the assistance of ICE Regional Ambassadors and Year 10 pupils from the school.
ICE West Midlands will be running a similar bridge activity at the Big Bang Fair at the Ricoh Arena on 25 June. If you'd like to volunteer to help out and have a great day enthusing budding engineers contact Jane Clinton.