From hot-air balloons floating over Paris to a dirigible crashing over New Jersey, here are some of the biggest moments of aviation history. Below is a timeline of humans' obsession with flight, from da Vinci to drones. Fasten your...

Read about Brazilian aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont, who designed, built, and flew hot air balloons, and was famous for his flight that rounded the Eiffel Tower.

Collection of digital resources gathered from public libraries, archives, and museums about early aviation. Learn more about key innovators and technologies from early flight experimentation and the invention of the hot air balloon to...

The Royal British Columbia Museum traces the achievements of BC's first men to travel into the colony's atmosphere in the air. The site discusses the hot air balloon flight of Professor Leclaire in 1880 and the flight of Charles K....

Make 4-wheeled, air-powered cars that jet across the floor. Experiment with the design process and thrust in this activity from Design Squad Nation.

An experiment to determine what happens to the air inside a balloon when it is heated or cooled.

In this activity, students use the common balloon cars they created which use air propelled out of a balloon as a fuel source to investigate how different gases (fuels) effect the travel distance of the balloon cars.

Students observe and discuss a simple balloon model of an electrostatic precipitator to better understand how this pollutant recovery method functions in cleaning industrial air pollution.

For this activity, teams of students build a car out of common materials which is then propelled by the release of air out of a balloon and must travel a minimum distance. The activity is then extended to a competition to build the car...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Ever lost a balloon that floated into the air? In this simulation learn how to combined gas law could help you understand the balloon's motion.

Lesson plan to teach properties of air. Students use balloons, plastic bottles, plastic bags and a meter stick to conclude that air is a gas that has weight, exerts pressure, and moves.

Investigate air pressure, motion and the forces of air currents using a bendy straw, a balloon and a rubber band.

Various demonstrations from the Illinois Institute of Technology of air pressure that can be used as an introduction to a chapter or unit on weather or air. Great examples for visual learners.

[Free Registration/Login Required] How can you tell that air is real if you can't see it or feel it? One way we can tell that air exists is by observing some of the things it does. Air can fill a balloon, for example, and when it's in...

PBS site allows you to discover how air pressure works as you learn how to build your own hovercraft.

An image of "Hot-Air Balloon Rising", created by Francesco Guardi in 1784 (Oil on canvas, 66 x 51 cm).

A brief recounting of the influx of inventions in the late 19th century that flooded the market. Of particular interest is the description of the use of hot air balloons.

This site contains a brief procedure for building (and launching) a balloon powered rocket. Introduces concepts of air pressure and propulsion.

Students use test their creativity and logic in the science-class activity through which they create a device that is powered by a deflating balloon.

Explore this NOVA: "Spies That Fly" interactive timeline and discover the many technological innovations in the history of unmanned flight, from hot-air balloons to miniature flying robots.

In this OER Commons resource students will use the Hot Air Balloon interactive to model integer addition. They then move to modeling addition on horizontal number lines. They look for patterns in their work and their answers to...

Seventh graders explore what happens to a hot air balloon when they add or remove units of weight or heat. This activity is an informal exploration of addition and subtraction with positive and negative integers.

Can you make a balloon hover in one spot and move without you touching it when you create air currents? Give it a try!

In this activity, you will get to build your own mini hovercraft. How will different amounts of air in the balloon affect how long the hovercraft hovers?