TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Lifter (Ehd Thrusters)
Students teams each assemble a wing component of a lifter with the goal to test the lifter wing and measure the force exerted when high voltage is applied to it. After an introduction to torque and its use to measure force, students...
Smithsonian Institution
National Air and Space Museum: Wright Brothers: Engineering the Wright Way
Great interactive provides students with an opportunity to use engineering skills to design and test airplane wings based on the methods of the Wright brothers. Step into the workshop and design a set of wings that will fly your glider...
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...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Adaptations for Aeronautical Engineering
This activity first asks the students to study the patterns of bird flight and understand that four main forces affect the flight abilities of a bird. They will study the shape, feather structure, and resulting differences in the pattern...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer an Airfoil
Do you know how an airplane flys? Use this challenge to learn about flight by building a wing that can generate lift from a fan while carrying weight. Find details about the challenge, tips, and a lesson plan on this site. Also, students...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Deploy a Satellite
Ready for a challenge? This site contains a challenge for students to build a satellite with a 6-inch square body that can deploy its own solar wings and antennae, and can fit inside a 9-inch diameter tube. Also, found on the site is a...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Scientific American: Flying Free: Make a Wind Tunnel
Investigate the science of flight, the tilt or angle of attack of a wing's surface and the effect of control surfaces. Construct a model of an open jet wind tunnel using a household desk fan to produce a flow of air.
Curated OER
New York Times: The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago
Annotated slideshow reviews the design of an addition to the the Art Institute of Chicago designed by Renzo Piano. Exterior and interior views convey all of the essential characteristics of Piano's work.
Treehut
Suzy's World: Aerodynamics
Use this fact sheet to find out what makes things fly with this fact sheet on aerodynamics.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Will It Fly?
In this lesson plan, students will learn about kites and gliders and how these models can help in understanding the concept of flight. Students will design and build their own balsa wood models and experiment with different control...
Other
Ken Blackburn: Paper Airplanes
Information on paper airplane designs, history, and contests. Click on "Paper Airplane Aerodynamics" for an analysis of the world record holding paper airplane design.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Are You in Control?
This lesson teaches the engineering method for testing wherein one variable is changed while the others are held constant. Students compare the performance of a single paper airplane design while changing the shape, size and position of...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Supersonic Dream: Anatomy of Concorde
Examine the features of Concorde that were designed and engineered for high-altitude, supersonic flight by exploring this detailed, interactive cross section.
The Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute Online: The Challenge of Flight
Think about the challenges that faced the Wright Brothers, then see if you can design and fly your own model aircraft. There are other sources provided to help you along the way.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Hoopster
Students create their own airplane using straws and other materials and learn the principles of aerodynamics.
NASA
Nasa: Flight: What Is Lift?
An explanation of the role lift plays in airplane take-off and flight.
PBS
Pbs the Life of Birds: Evolution and Anatomy of Flight
This lesson plan, designed to accompany the PBS series "Life of Birds," explores how environmental pressures influenced the evolution of wings, how natural selection resulted in the diversity of bird species, and the mechanics of bird...
Kidport
Kidport: Beaks and Bills
Birds have a wide variety of beaks or bills. Some are designed for opening seeds, while others are designed for catching fish or even tearing flesh to eat a small animal. Discover the dynamic uses of beaks and bills.
HotChalk
Hot Chalk: Lesson Plans Page: Billie Bird Learning About a Bird's Body
This lesson is designed to introduce young students to the various parts of bird anatomy and to express that through creative movement, poetry, and drawings.
Michigan Reach Out
Nasa Trc: Maple Seed Helicopters
Students study the aerodynamic properties of a maple seed and then apply what they observe making their own flying object.
Library of Congress
Loc: Temple of Liberty
The Library of Congress presents research materials about the building of the United States Capitol. Conceiving of themselves as inheritors, guardians, and conveyors of Western civilization, our founding fathers slowly built a Capitol...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: May the Force Be With You: Lift
Students revisit Bernoulli's Principle (Lesson 1 of the Airplanes unit) and learn how engineers use this principle to design airplane wings. Airplane wings create lift by changing the pressure of the air around it. This is the first of...
University at Buffalo
University of Buffalo: Temple of Saturn
These photographs, taken in 1966, give a full-scale view of what remains today of the Temple of Saturn. The photographs are full-page and very clear. At this site are views from the 3 Capitolines.
Other
Memorial Hall Museum: Wells Thorn House: 1600 1740: Early Colonial Style
Useful tool for investigating an early type of American colonial architecture based on English post-medieval style. Roll over the photograph of the oldest wing of the Wells-Thorn House to isolate architectural design elements and learn...