Building Bridges With Listo

Amy Kieffer

This project presented a bilingual, integrated art and science unit about bridges in the elementary classroom at the Listo Family Literacy Program. Art and science are important to bring learning to life because they allow teachers to pull from multiple subjects areas and allow students to use higher level thinking such as analysis and synthesis in a way that is fun and engaging. It is important that English language learning (ELL) students are given enriching learning experiences in science and art in a way which supports and builds off of their first language skills. In these lessons, students conducted experiments to learn about bridge design, explored the art of bridge design, created artworks of their own bridge design, and finally built and tested their own bridges. Throughout this process, they were supported in English and Spanish and built their math and science vocabulary in both languages.