Flying Wing

Aspiring aeronautical engineers demonstrate different forces as they construct and test paper airplanes. This lesson plan links you to a website that models the most effective paper airplane design, an animation describing the forces...

Watch your marshmallows fly. The engaging STEM activity has groups create a catapult to launch marshmallows. After testing their prototypes, they consider improvements and redesign their catapults.

Learners investigate ways to enhance an object's flying ability.  In this model construction lesson, students construct two paper airplanes, one of which is twice as big as the first.  Learners compare and contrast the two separate...

Groups explore concepts of flight by creating paper airplanes from different types of paper and testing their flight. They use the results to identify the optimal material.

What can fighting fruit flies tell us about our own brains? Junior geneticists explore the common genes of fruit flies and humans and learn how scientists are using the tiny insects to help study depression, anger, and Alzheimer's...

Go fly a kite, then fly a plane! The 19th part of a 22-part unit on aviation looks at the way kites and gliders help aid in the understanding of flight. Pupils discuss how engineers used kites to influence airplane designs.

Richly illustrated interactive activity leads you through an investigation of bird wings. Includes interesting comparisons of the bones in a bird's wings with those in human arms and of the design of wings in birds versus planes.

Back in the day, all birds had the ability to fly. Why would evolutionary adaptations take that away from some species? A video presentation discusses the cost of having the ability to fly and why that feature may not be ideal for some...

Keep everything under control. The activity, the 16th segment in a 22-part unit, provides a more detailed look at the parts of a plane, specifically the control surfaces. Pupils learn about the construction of the wings and the tails and...

Sixth graders explore physics by utilizing their math skills. In this flight properties lesson, 6th graders examine the flying capabilities of planes and birds. Students utilize math to find how many wing-beats are needed to keep a bird...