Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire attended a ‘Build a Bridge’ event at Ounsdale High School today.
Students from all over Europe visited Ounsdale in order to build a 6m x 3m x 3m bridge across a garden on the school grounds.
The 18 students, from six partner schools in Germany, Sweden, Finland, France and Pershore, between them constructed the bridge under the supervision of bridge building expert Ian Naylor.
Building Bridges to Connect Communities was founded in 2012. The two year project, which is funded by the European Union, was inspired by a quote from Sir Isaac Newton: ‘We Build too many walls and not enough bridges.’
The sequence of work - mostly undertaken by students aged 14-15 years old – involved both science (research into what makes for a strong and stable bridge) and maths (studying the geodome design for bridge building and designing a bridge made out of straws).
A series of in-school competitions were held to choose bridge designs to enter a European final. The winning design, which was produced by a school in Sweden, was then re-modelled slightly by Ian Naylor to make construction possible.
As well as building the bridge, there was also a series of social opportunities during the event.
Speaking of the occasion, Gavin said: “I very much enjoyed meeting the students during today's event. A lot of hard work was put into this project by schools in both the UK and abroad.
“Building a Bridge is an apt metaphor for how these pupils have crossed international boundaries and worked together to create something extremely impressive. The final result was, quite simply, incredible.”