ART LESSONS
MARCH, APRIL, MAY 2013
GR.4 Architecture
https://www.google.com/search?q=architecture&rlz=1C1RNPN_enUS432&aq=f&um=1&ie
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*ARCHITECTURE”, *Frank Lloyd Wright, Wi. Architect history
*video
Lesson: Frank Lloyd Wright
“Falling Water”, Pennsylvania PA
“No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
http://blogs.bgsu.edu/imanidart101/2012/08/03/frank-lloyd-wrights-guggenheim-museum/
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum
Lesson: Draw new architecture plan
http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/elem/linda-houses.htm
Dream Houses Drawing
Imagine you could have any house you wanted. Money is no object. You can place the
house anywhere in the world (or off it) and you can build the house from any
materials you wish. What would that house look like?
*Blue Print Drawing; draw interior rooms of Dream House, in detail
http://www.buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/vocab.html architecture dictionary
Lesson: “Create a New Building Structure”, *cut paper, sketch idea, *texturewallpaper scraps, *surrounding environment- paper
 *3D sculpture
Online Projects by Architects and Design Professionals
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/wright_frank_lloyd.html
View websites showing a variety of Architectural Styles and Architects
*Introduce Wisconsin Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright
*current exhibit at MAM
Emergency Shelter
Every year, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters leave
thousands of people homeless. Many more are displaced by wars and other manmade catastrophes. How can so many people be sheltered?
Design a Building for an Alien Planet
Imagine yourself on an alien planet. Design a building or structure for this strange,
alien world.
Lesson: Engineering a Bridge
London Bridge and the Olympic rings. London and the Olympics
This lesson will involve your students in geometry and measurement as they work as civil
engineers to design and build their own bridge.
OBJECTIVE
Students will be able to:
Identify how geometry affects bridge design and function and apply that knowledge to the
design and construction of a bridge.
MATERIALS
Elmer's Foam board, Popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, bendable rods, Elmer's Glue All, paper,
pushpins, weights
Engineering a Bridge PDF
SET UP AND PREPARE
Content Introduction
When engineers design a bridge, they must consider how the bridge will be used, how long
and wide it should be, and how much weight it has to hold. There are four main types of
bridges:
Beam bridges are made of horizontal beams supported by piers at each end.
Truss bridges are a combination of triangles made of steel.
Arch bridges are made up of arches supporting the bridge and are naturally strong.
Suspension bridges are long bridges, such as the Golden Gate Bridge.
Essential Questions
Use these essential questions to help guide students' thinking:
How does geometry help engineers build bridges?
What do we need to build a successful bridge?
Vocabulary
Type of bridges: beam, truss, arch, suspension
Additional vocabulary: arch, beam, deck, column, fixed arch, footing, portal, strut
Introduction (5-10 minutes)
Explain to students that they are going to be engineers today as they design their own
bridges.
Show students various bridges. What do they all have in common? What are some
differences? Which bridge is the strongest? Look at the shapes that are used to construct
each bridge. Which shape is the strongest? Which is the weakest? Why might you use each
type of shape to build a bridge?
DIRECTIONS
Craft Component: Bridge Engineering (20 minutes)
Divide students into groups of three to four.
Pass out Elmer's foam board, glue, markers, Popsicle sticks, and other materials to each
group.
Challenge students to use what they learned about bridges to build a bridge that will hold
the most weight.
If students finish early, they can write a hypothesis of how much weight they think their
bridge can support and their rationale.
Students can also use pushpins and paper to label the various parts of their bridge.
Structural Test (5-10 minutes)
Have each group present their bridge and test it using increasingly heavy weights. As each
group presents their bridge, students discuss which elements of bridge construction they
incorporated and why.
Whiteboard Component Activities
As students test their bridges, record the data on your whiteboard using theEngineering a
Bridge PDF. Record the type of bridge, elements of the bridge (arch, beam, deck, column,
fixed arch, footing, portal, strut), number of popsicles, maximum weight that each bridge
held, weaknesses, and strengths of the bridge. Then create multiple ways to show the same
information. Discuss why you might want to use each representation.
Have students imagine that they are going to build an actual bridge using their small bridge
as a model. Have students draw their bridge on graph paper, converting their models to
show a full-scale drawing of their bridge. (Some students may need assistance establishing
a way to convert centimeters or inches to meters or feet.)
Project images of famous bridges onto the whiteboard. Have students label the parts of a
bridge using bridge vocabulary.
Resources
Index of famous bridges: http://www.famousbridge.com/
PBS webography of
bridges: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/bridge/webography.html