Bridge to Classroom

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Designing and building a bridge to withstand earthquakes is no easy challenge. Explore the science, technology and people involved in the bridge with these interactive learning modules and simulations!

Quake Country Learn what causes earthquakes and see what scientists are predicting for the the coming quake. Pages on:

The Earth Moves (How plate tectonics works),

When Plates Collide (maps of plates and Earthquake Zones),

California Faults,

Measuring Quakes,

and The Coming Quake.

Engineering for Earthquakes Try designing the bridge yourself in Engineering for Earthquakes

Learn about the five types of bridge spans, their strengths and weaknesses

Choose three spans (same kind or different) and drag them into the diagram to make the three segments

Install various Safety Features to help against quakes

Test your bridge against earthquakes of different magnitudes from different directions!

Go back and try again, if you need to.

Two Miles Animation of how the bridge will span two miles. Learn about Geofill, the Skyway and its precast segments, Self-Anchoring Suspension Cables, Shear Links, liquefication, and more; by clicking on the icons!

2,000 Hands Meet some of the 2,000 people working on the bridge. 12 different jobs are explained by people who do them.

The New San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge
On September 2, 2013, the new East Span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened to traffic. Watch the bridge's construction from start to finish in this time lapse video, which compresses nearly six years of around-the-clock construction activity into a dizzying four minutes.

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