Fellow eighth graders learn to build bridges

LYNN-Breed Middle School eighth graders participated in the annual Bridge Building Challenge earlier this month, with the champions constructing a structure able to hold nearly 60 times its own weight.Students Dany Te, Jarred Mitchell and Hugo Baldaras, members of the school’s Mercury cluster were the winners of the competition, building a bridge that held a combined 60.2 pounds of weight.Student groups from the Mercury, Endeavor, Intrepid and Voyager clusters all joined in the annual competition, held Monday, Nov. 19 in the school lecture hall.Groups had to construct a bridge using six index cards, two paper cups and glue. Once the bridges were complete, textbooks and pennies were weighed and placed on the bridges until they collapsed.The 60.2 pounds the winning bridge was able to hold was made up of 22 textbooks and 1,300 pennies stored in a coffee can.Science teacher Cindy Quaratiello said the school has been participating in the contest for many years, but engineering has become a much larger part of the curriculum recently, especially in eighth grade.With 10th grade students required to pass a science portion of the MCAS test beginning this year, the focus on math and science is even more prominent at the middle school level. Projects like the Bridge Building Competition offer a unique and entertaining way for students to learn about math and engineering, and create a healthy academic competition.Quaratiello said the school is planning a math and science night in January, and will hold a science fair at the end of the year.