Middle and high school students in Southcentral Kentucky are putting their classroom lessons to a constructive use. Students representing 12 to 15 schools are expected to compete at the fifth annual Barren River Imaginative Museum of Science Regional Bridge Building Championship at Stupp Bridge Co. today, bringing with them about 150 miniature bridges. The bridges are constructed from a kit 15 sticks of bass wood that are two feet long and 1/8 inch square in thickness and white glue. Two or three things about the bridge specifications are changed each year so winning designs cant be simply copied from year to year. For example, the height of the road bed is lower this year, allowing for a more compact bridge, said Doug Jenkins, regional director of the contest and a physics teacher at Warren Central High School. The most important thing is first of all they have to do some independent thinking to design their bridge, and then they have to actually build it. Its not a pencil and paper type of assignment like most of the things we do in school are, he said. The end result is the students end up feeling some pride that maybe they dont feel with their other assignments. Brian Womack, eighth grade science teacher at Bowling Green Junior High School, also had several students preparing for the contest. I think it helps them make a connection between theory and application as far as being a hands-on project. It helps make a real-world connection with some of the things we teach in class, he said. Its also a good activity to help connect some of the students who are not that enthusiastic about classroom-type activities such as lectures and notes. This helps them get a little more excited about science if its something they can put their hands on and actually build. For the competition, each bridge will straddle two tables. A metal plate will be placed atop the bridge and the plate will have a string attached to a bucket that hangs below the bridge. The bucket will be gradually filled with more and more sand until the bridge breaks. The winner will have the bridge with the most efficient design which will hold the most weight in relation to its own weight. So far, this is the only regional contest in the state, Jenkins said, and there is no national competition. First place and runner-up winners from the high school division at the regional level will rebuild their bridges and progress straight to the international competition, which will be held in Scranton, Pa., on May 6. Both students who advance will be allowed to take one chaperon on the all-expense paid trip to Pennsylvania. In addition, the top 10 students in each division middle or high school will win trophies. The scores of the top five students from each school will be combined to determine the top two schools, which will receive plaques.