Friendly Bulldozer at Work

About this drawing

A smiling bulldozer is a super strong machine built to move dirt. On the front is a wide, flat blade that shoves piles of soil, rocks and sand like a giant snow shovel.

Instead of tires, a bulldozer rolls on tracks, long metal belts looped around wheels inside. Tracks spread the machine's weight over lots of ground, the same way snowshoes keep you from sinking into snow. That lets a bulldozer crawl through mud and climb hills without getting stuck, even though it moves pretty slowly.

On a building site, the bulldozer is one of the first machines to show up. It flattens the land so crews can build houses, schools and roads. It also clears paths and pushes away dirt and branches after storms. A driver sits in the cab and raises or lowers the blade with levers or a joystick.

Bulldozers come in many sizes. Small ones fit in a backyard, while the biggest work in mines and stand as tall as a house. Some can even be driven by remote control, so they can work in dangerous places while the operator stays safely far away. Whatever their size, they all do the same job: pushing the ground into shape.

• bulldozer
• construction
• machines
• dirt
• job site