Kay Robertson - Stem Guides To Construction

Includes index. ISBN 978-1-62169-844-9 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-62169-739-8 (softcover) ISBN 978-1-62169-947-7 (e-Book) Library of Congress Control Number: 2013936449

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Some construction projects are bigger than others, but at the core they are all the same. They are all about measuring, estimating, and calculating. Constructing anything requires a lot of numbers, and wherever there are numbers you can find math! Pyramids of Egypt Many of the worlds greatest construction projects no longer exist. We only know about them because of ancient writings. Between the years 484 and 425 BCE there lived a Greek historian named Herodotus. Herodotus is sometimes called the father of history because he spent much of his life gathering and recording information.

Sometime in the 5th Century BCE Herodotus compiled a list of Seven Wonders of the World. This was a list of man-made structures so vast and impressive that they were truly wondrous. Six of the Seven Wonders no longer exist. They were destroyed by natural disasters like floods, fire, and earthquakes. STEM in Action ? How many of the Seven Wonders are still with us today? You can find out by using subtraction: 7 6 = 1 Only 1 of the Seven Wonders is still with us today! That one remaining wonder is the Great Pyramid, located in Giza, Egypt. STEM Fast Fact !Seven Wonders of the World 1.

Great Pyramid of Giza 2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon 3. Statue of Zeus at Olympia 4. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus 5. Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 6. Colossus of Rhodes 7.

Lighthouse of Alexandria , but the Great Pyramid is the largest they ever built. The Great Pyramid is roughly 482 feet (146.91 meters) high, and each side measures 756 feet (230.43 meters) at the base. Khafres Pyramid is a pyramid in Giza that was constructed sometime after the Great Pyramid was completed. Khafres Pyramid appears to be larger than the Great Pyramid, but this is only because it is built on higher ground. The Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt is the only remaining wonder of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World.Burj Khalifa reaches up to the height of 2,717 feet (828 meters). In fact, the of Khafres Pyramid are just slightly smaller than those of the Great Pyramid. man has built bigger and taller structures than the pyramids. man has built bigger and taller structures than the pyramids.

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Hoover Dam are just two examples. Both of those structures, though, were built with the aid of powerful machinery. How did the Egyptians build the pyramids without bulldozers, drills, or explosives? STEM in Action ? How much taller is the Great Pyramid compared to Khafres Pyramid? Again, finding the answer is simply a matter of subtracting: 482 471 = 11 The Great Pyramid is roughly 11 feet higher than Khafres Pyramid! What about the two pyramids bases? How much larger is the base of the Great Pyramid compared to the base of Khafres Pyramid? 756 705 = 51 The Great Pyramid has a base 51 feet longer than the base of Khafres Pyramid! STEM in Action ? About how much does the Great Pyramid weigh? You can find out by using multiplication: 5,000 2,000,000 = 10,000,000,000 The Great Pyramid weighs about 10 billion pounds! Experts believe that the Great Pyramid was built over a period of about 20 years. If so, how many stones were put in place each year? You can find out using division: 2,000,000 20 = 100,000 About 100,000 stones were put in place during each year of the construction of the Great Pyramid! Using simple tools, the Egyptians first quarried rock from nearby where a pyramid was to be built. Next, the pyramid base was constructed. Then, using a system of ramps, more rocks were piled on top of the base.