East Lansing Students Build Own ‘Roads’


While adults wrangle over road funding in Lansing, students tried their hands Monday at building their own thoroughfares, of sorts.

They were mock roads, of course, but the lesson was straightforward: Roadwork takes ingenuity and a lot of money, said Karim Chatti of Michigan State University’s College of Engineering.

The college sponsored the event, in which about 160 MacDonald Middle School students used sand, gravel, stones and asphalt sheets to create their roads in boxes. The program was also intended to encourage math and science learning, Chatti said.

The students later tested the strength of their boxed roads with weights.

“A big part of it is really to encourage our kids to follow up on a career in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) activities in general and in our case civil and transportation engineering,” Chatti said.

Link:  http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2014/11/10/students-build-roads/18826215/

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