By Dylan McDonough
This month Koinonia Homeschool Co-op went to another IMAX movie field trip called Dream Big: Engineering our World. This was the first 3-D IMAX movie I have ever seen. It was about how engineers change the world through their imaginations.
We learned about a woman who survived a devastating earthquake in Turkey that killed 45,000 people. Right then she decided to become an engineer and study earthquakes and ground failure. We watched her study a recent earthquake in Nepal. She noticed liquification which is when the soil seems to liquify during an earthquake. We saw that carrots popped right out of a garden.
We also learned about a great engineering secret of the Great Wall of China. It is 13,000 miles long and the longest structure ever built by humans. You’ll never guess what secret ingredient is within the wall. The Chinese learned that sticky rice allows the wall to contract with different temperatures. One of the keys to being a great engineer is to use your imagination.
We also learned about the Shanghai Tower with 128 floors. It was built because there was no more room to build in Shanghai. Typhoons are a major problem that engineers have to deal with. They built the tower twisted so that the typhoon winds would curl around the building instead of knocking it down.
There were many more interesting stories in this film about the exciting world of engineering. It really showed how they use their imaginations and simple ideas. If you have a wild imagination and the knack for building, this is the movie for you. Dream big!
