<p>I have already cried, complained and pulled my hair out about the ninth grade projects at my daughter’s school. I thought we had about survived them, but she got one today that is the prizewinner. For geometry, she has to go around town and look at the construction of bridges and then build her own bridge out of 100 toothpicks or less and glue that will hold up TEN geometry books. Is this really possible???</p>
<p>Yes; kids in my d’s school also had to do it (and in 8th grade). Luckily for d, the teacher who required it retired the year before she took geometry! Sorry that yours has to do it!</p>
<p>Oh come on mom! You have PLENTY of time to get that done! You could build a whole model city for the class. Don’t be a slacker mom. ;)</p>
<p>Yup, we did that. My daughter’s bridge was ugly, clumpy with glue and couldn’t hold the weight.</p>
<p>There are a lot of web sites about it.</p>
<p>We decided long ago to not stress about these kinds of artsy projects. I feel if it’s that important it can be done in class under the supervision of the teacher requiring it. If it’s “homework” it usually ends up being thrown together at the last minute or sometimes not being done at all (depending on how much it will count towards the final grade). I RESENT these kinds of projects. Our latest one was for my sons Japanese class. They were put into groups and had to film a commercial, in Japanese with English subtitles, but nobody in my sons group owned a camcorder or was familiar with film editing software. $300 later (camcorder, fire wire cable and film…I figured I’d bite the bullet since filming something seems to come up every single year!), and a weekend crash course in Windows Movie Maker, my sons group has a crappy commercial to turn in.</p>
<p>ummmm, pssstttttt, ummmm, over here</p>
<p>gooooggglllleeeee</p>
<p>shhhhhh</p>
<p>and ps</p>
<p>STOOPID PROJECT</p>
<p>I tried CGM’s advice, because I never had a chance to do this back in my schooldays 
. The designs that parents (sorry, kids) come up with are mind-blowing; the winner at one contest held up to 250kg of force!</p>
<p><a href=“http://homepage2.nifty.com/SUBAL/BCPrE.htm#04winner[/url]”>http://homepage2.nifty.com/SUBAL/BCPrE.htm#04winner</a></p>
<p>Here’s the main page of optimizer’s link:
<a href=“http://homepage2.nifty.com/SUBAL/BCTOPE.htm[/url]”>http://homepage2.nifty.com/SUBAL/BCTOPE.htm</a></p>
<p>I read through Carrie’s toothpick project (a link on the page) – never had physics, so i didn’t understand most of it. But I am amazed at these highschoolers. Do you really think it’s a parent, OD?</p>
<p>No projects like this done at home anymore in our district. Too many kids/parents just googled. Now, an assignment would be to visit and take pictures of bridges, with student also in the picture to prove that they did some of the footwork, and then build the bridge at school–usually as a team of 2-3. Sure the kids could still google and try to remember what they saw…But no notes. They would get more out of the project by the exchanging of ideas out loud, discussing concepts behind the placement of toothpicks, etc.</p>
<p>The AP Physics class made a big bridge out of popsicle sticks a couple of years ago. It was absolutely fantastic though…my d’s picture of the bridge, with a student actually standing on it, was the centerspread of the yearbook.</p>
<p>The entire class worked on it, entirely in class. We had far too many recycled catapaults (students handing them down to younger siblings or friends), so the ‘in class’ thing became mandatory.</p>
<p>it was a 6th grade, in-class, group project in our elem school to concincide with Roman unit – Roman architects had to stand under every new bridge when it opened. </p>
<p>Winning bridge held 20+ books before it came crashing down.</p>
<p>My favorite project was in my son’s 6th grade math class. He was supposed to visit 4 different grocery stores and pricecheck a list of grocery items, then figure out the price per ounce of each item, and see which was cheapest. I called the teacher and said that I would be happy to INVENT prices for each of the stores and items, but no way was I going to waste gasoline, and precious time driving to 4 grocery stores. She was completely flummoxed and said that all the other parents loved this assignment and thought it was so useful! I told her that when my son had a driver’s license, and a car (as in, maybe when he’s 23?), then she could assign it as homework. I also reminded her that there were plenty of kids in the class who were bused into the school from low-income families - many who had limited access to vehicles and parents working two or more low-paying jobs. It would be a huge struggle for them to do this assignment. She got the idea eventually!</p>
<p>In California, in fourth grade they build missions. (Yes, the Catholic Church, Father Junipero Serra type missions.) At our local elementary school the new fourth grade teacher thought one mission looked particularly familiar. She picked it up, scratched off some paint on the bottom, and sure enough, it was the mission she had built in fourth grade many moons ago, and had been remodeled and passed on every year since then. At that point the school decided the mission building would be done in the classroom.</p>
<p>There are a number of interesting sites where you can building virtual bridges on the internet.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.jhu.edu/virtlab/bridge/truss.htm[/url]”>http://www.jhu.edu/virtlab/bridge/truss.htm</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/download.htm[/url]”>http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/download.htm</a></p>
<p>There’s an even better one, but of course I can’t find it…</p>
<p>I won a team-building event at a winery building an egg protection device out of popsicle sticks and hotglue. The key was to spread the load and use lots of cross-bracing. I actually view these things as fun.</p>
<p>I was so happy when my youngest daughter’s teacher said “no mission building”. Everyone just buys kits anyway. I remember almost 40 years ago when I was in 4th grade in CA and we made missions. Everyone else in the class made theirs out of sugar cubes, but my mother refused to waste food, so mine was rather clumpy homemade papermachie</p>
<p>anxiousmom,
My son had the exact same project except in ninth grade, in his “life skills” class. We had to go to three grocery stores and compare prices of some 20 items. It took the good part of a weekend. What an incredible waste of time in order to learn the “life skills” lesson that by shopping smartly, we can save money!!! (What a concept- as though these Madison Avenue kids in our consumer oriented society don’t know how to shop!)</p>
<p>I get a kick out of how teachers think a 20 hour investment on a relatively simple concept is a good use of learning time.</p>
<p>For the same class, son had to get real insurance quotes for himself. Since most online insurance agents require a drivers license number and other personal information (DOB, etc), it was quite impossible for him to do this without passing off false information (he was only 14). That was a very nice life skills lesson!</p>
<p>I have no doubt that the projects were done by high schoolers. My son had to do a similar project for Science Olympiad. My role was to provide materials and tell him how little statics I remembered!</p>