#MakerMovement Bridges

In 6th grade social studies, students got involved in the#MakerMovement as we did a project from the magazine MAKE, which is all about making, tinkering and creating. Inspired by the Inca's amazing engineering skills and particularly their achievement of building suspension bridges across deep canyons in the Andes, we decided to make bridges. As mentioned we first researched the Incas and saw some of their designs.  goo.gl/0G3Pgc

Our bridges were made with popsicle sticks, wooden squares and hot glue guns. We worked in groups of 4-5 students as we followed to the best of our ability the bridge instructions while adding strategic designs of our own.  goo.gl/WOmelx 

After taking 3 class days to build our bridges, we decided to test out the weight of each bridge. This was a very exciting day as the students had worked hard throughout the project and filmed each and every step. To test the bridges, we used our social studies textbooks and to our surprise one of the bridges actually held 44 textbooks, which is the equivalent of 57 kilograms!

To reflect on the project, each team made a video about the process and what went well with their designs or what could have been improved in their structures.

Overall, the 6th graders learned a lot as they worked together and all came up with great reflections about their bridges. 

Here is a youtube playlist of several of the videos from our class.goo.gl/zubLh6 

Recharged.

“‘Ask yourself if what you are doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow.’” —@owensbla

That quote comes from a great article on Medium, which you can find here by Blake.

So often our to-do lists pile up and we get overwhelmed. It's hard to keep our priorities in the right order. Or we end up doing mundane "busy" things while forgetting there's a bigger world out there.

It's easy to spend hours online and feel like you're "working" when really you end up distracted or spending way too long on one thing. I'm loving the Google Chrome extension called "TimeStats" that keeps track of how long you are on different pages.

Despite cool tools or gadgets that are meant to help us keep track of time, I've found that the best way to get myself together and back on track is to unplug and take a break.

That's exactly what I did over the holiday vacation. Two weeks sans technology (more or less). It was completely refreshing. 15 days of reading, playing games, talking with family, running on the beach, and sometimes just sitting was exactly what I needed to get my brain ready for 2015.

Even though I took a big chunk of "time off" from normal duties and online responsibilities, it has served me well.

Ironically, I have already accomplished more in less time this week. Funny how that works when you take time to rest, get re-focused and put things in the right order.

Not going to lie, I love the mantra above from Blake. I printed it out and stuck it on my computer screen, just so I don't forget to take some time off every now and then.

Taped this to my school computer, just as a friendly reminder.