Paper Bridges can be a fun engineering activity for people of all ages. We provide these generalizations as guidelines about what children at different ages might do during Paper Bridge explorations at the Discovery Center’s Experiment Station, at home in your living room, kitchen, yard, or at school.
Listed below are science and technology process skills that children may be practicing during their explorations. Please remember: each children develops are a different rate, so some children in each age group maybe to do some of things described in the age group before or after their own.
How might infants explore Paper Bridge Engineering?
Explore and Observe - Infants
Although infants do not possess the motor skills to create a paper bridge on their own, many infants enjoy watching older children make and test their bridges. Some infants will be able to help 'test' the bridges by placing weights on top.
If infants will be present while older children are engineering bridges, a grownup should closely monitor the creative process to ensure that infants do not place any small objects in their mouths. Paper clips are not needed to design a great bridge- skip the clips if there will be infants in the activity area, and use weights (counters, chips, etc.) that are non-choke-ables, so infants can explore the materials too!