Read Works
Read Works: The Paper Airplane Contest
[Free Registration/Login Required] A literary text about a class that has a paper airplane contest. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Defining an Engineering Design Problem With Paper Airplanes
In this fun lesson, you will be the "customer" ordering a paper airplane, and your student teams will be engineering companies that will manufacture planes. Before they start making planes, they need to define the criteria and...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Paper Airplanes
At this site students will use origami to fold a paper airplane that fly better than the classic dart airplane.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Up, Up and Away! Airplanes
The airplanes unit begins with a lesson on how airplanes create lift, which involves a discussion of air pressure and how wings use Bernoulli's Principle to change air pressure. Following the lessons on lift, students explore the other...
Other
Easy to Make Paper Airplanes
Have fun making different kinds of flying vehicles. You will learn how to make a paper airplane, helicopter, rocket, blimp, etc.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Building a Paper Airplane Using Bernoulli's Principle
This is a culmination activity used after students have studied Bernoulli's Principle as part of a unit on forces and fluids. Students will use the Internet, textbooks, library resources and their cooperative learning group to design...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Spinning Blimps
Students create a blimp and then experiment with the design to improve its aerodynamics.
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)
Smile: Lab Activity: Aviation
This site from the Illinois Institute of Technology provides a student lab activity in which the flight of a paper airplane is investigated and studied. Designed for primary grades, but easily adaptable for junior high students.
Michigan Reach Out
Reach Out!: Making Paper Airplane Gliders
Students learn the fundamentals of aerodynamics in this hands-on exercise.
Discovery Education
Discovery Education: Inventors and Inventions 2: Air and Space
After discussing important flying inventions, students explore technological design by making paper airplanes.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Project Ideas: Whirl Y Bird vs. Whale Y Bird
Improve the design of a very simple aircraft, the whirlybird, and learn about hydrodynamics and biomimicry in this science experiment. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up consistently beginning with an abstract, objective, and...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Hoopster
Students create their own airplane using straws and other materials and learn the principles of aerodynamics.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Roto Copter
Students can experiment with a home-made helicopter that lets them change the blades to see how real aerodynamics work.