Building Big
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/index.html
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- Learn more about architecture, careers, occupations, physics, and technology.
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The Building Big website takes you on an educational quest, serving as a companion to the PBS series and making the story of the world’s engineering wonders understandable for adults, middle, and high-school students.Interactive Labs help visitors develop a “hands-on” understanding of the basic principles that underlie all built structures. Through creative Flash animations, these interactive simulations allow users to play with shapes, materials, forces, and loads to see how they affect large-scale structures. In the Challenges section of this website, you’re the engineer, solving problems and making structural choices as you build bridges, skyscrapers, dams, domes, and tunnels in these interactive stories. Your choices affect the story outcomes. Along the way, you’ll learn why buildings, bridges, and other structures stand up and why they sometimes fall down. With no plug-ins required, this feature is accessible to “high-end” and “low-tech” users alike.Designed to build awareness of engineering as a career choice, a series of interviews introduces visitors to a diverse assortment of men and women from a variety of engineering disciplines. The Wonders of the World Databank is a searchable database that profiles the real-life structures featured throughout the Building Big website and television series, as well as other notable engineering milestones.The Educators’ Guide includes hands-on activities and a multi-part “How-To” section with tips for educators and parents on how to use the website to help students learn basic engineering and physics principles.
