Elizabeth Schmermund - Skyscrapers!: With 25 Science Projects for Kids

Titles in the Explore Engineering Set

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Have you ever traveled to a big city and seen its impressive skyline ? Have you ever taken an elevator up, up, up to the top of a building that towers above the rest? Then you know how inspiring skyscrapers can be!

Skyscrapers are very tall buildings. They are so tall they seem to scrape at the sky. They are normally found in medium-sized to large cities around the world. Skyscrapers are used for offices, apartments, libraries, stores, restaurants, and much more.

WORDS TO KNOW

skyline: an outline of land and buildings against the sky.

skyscraper: an extremely tall building.

technology: the tools, methods, and systems used to solve a problem or do work.

engineer: a person who uses science, math, and creativity to design and build things such as roads, bridges, and buildings.

architect: a person who designs buildings.

engineering: the work an engineer does, using science and math to design and build things.

structure: something that is built, such as a building, bridge, tunnel, tower, or dam.

Our definition of what a skyscraper is has changed during the past 100 years. This has happened as buildings have been built higher than ever before. Technology has helped engineers and architects construct taller and taller buildings.

During the nineteenth century, a skyscraper was any building that was 10 stories high or taller. But we wouldnt consider that to be a skyscraper today. Because of modern engineering , a skyscraper today typically reaches at least 40 to 50 stories tall, or around 550 feet in the air. Thats about the size of 55 elephants stacked on top of one another!

EARLY SKYSCRAPERS

While the term skyscraper was first used in the year 1880, humankind has always enjoyed building tall structures .

WORDS TO KNOW

dominance: power and influence over others.

coordination: the organization of different parts working together.

stable: firmly established and not likely to change or move.

physics: the science of how matter and energy work together. Matter is what an object is made of. Energy is the ability to perform work.

engineering design: the process engineers use to identify problems and come up with solutions.

predecessor: people, events, or things that came before.

Even in the ancient world, architects often sought to build higher and higher into the sky. They thought it showed their dominance over nature and would impress others with their engineering know-how! And it was impressive.

It requires a lot of work, knowledge, and coordination to build a tall building that is stable . Tall buildings are built with many minds that know and use mathematics, the laws of physics , and engineering design methods.

Of course, we wouldnt call these ancient structures skyscrapers today. But they were the predecessors to the modern skyscrapers we see in cities today. Experiments done by early builders taught future architects and engineers how to build taller and stronger structures.

WORDS TO KNOW

BCE: put after a date, BCE stands for Before Common Era and counts years down to zero. CE stands for Common Era and counts years up from zero. This book was published in 2018 CE.

pyramid : a large stone structure with a square base and triangular sides.

The town of Shibam in Yemen has been in existence for nearly 2,000 years. It has been called the Manhattan of the Desert and the Ancient City of Skyscrapers. This is because Shibams residents live in clay buildings that stand from 5 to 10 stories high. Evidence of construction on these ancient buildings has been dated to approximately 300 BCE , although most of the buildings were likely built after 1532 CE. They survive today as proof of the power of ancient engineering!