How a Bridge Is Built (Engineering Our World)

Explains the process of building a bridge, including understanding the forces at work on a bridge, placing the piers and abutments correctly, and building the decking.

Gr 1–3—Just the ticket for getting young readers to think like engineers, these glimpses behind the scenes focus on design considerations, materials, and manufacturing steps. Skyscraper, for example, covers preliminary considerations from wind to number of elevators needed, explains the benefits of using steel and reinforced concrete, shows tall buildings at different stages of construction, and then closes with an excellent project that tests bunched "towers" of rolled-up newspaper for stability with an electric fan. Likewise, Bridge introduces terms like rebar and cantilever; Plane explains the physics of flight; and, along with showing the innards of a desktop from motherboard to cooling fan being assembled, Computer invites readers to build their own, and to write their own programs. Each volume begins with snatches of historical background, and closes with small but select resource lists. VERDICT Excellent choices for heightening awareness of important elements in our infrastructure.