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Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
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These resources have been reviewed and selected by STEM Learning’s team of education specialists for factual accuracy and relevance to teaching STEM subjects in UK schools.
Stronger structures experiment
This is one of a set of resources developed to support the teaching of the primary national curriculum. They are designed to support the delivery of key topics within science, maths and design and technology. This resource focusses on testing how well different shaped structures perform under load.
Structures are all around us. They enable buildings, bridges and vehicles to withstand the stresses placed on them every day. Can you find out what shapes are the strongest, and how they can be made even stronger?
In this activity learners will construct card models of a cuboid, a triangular prism and a cylinder. They will then place loads on each to see which is the strongest and record their results. They will learn about ways that structures can be strengthened and apply these to their models.
This could be used as a one-off activity or as part of a wider unit of work focussing on structures and structural systems. It could also be used as a maths activity focussing on 3D shapes and the presentation of data.
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Stronger structures (activity) 3.23 MB -
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