Teach Engineering
May the Force Be With You: Lift
Get the class up and going with a lesson that discusses how airplane wings provide lift. Pupils use their knowledge of Bernoulli's Principle to develop an explanation of how it creates lift on airplane wings.
Teach Engineering
May the Force Be With You: Drag
Do not let friction drag you down! The 11th segment in a series of 22 focuses on the fourth force acting upon an airplane—drag. Pupils learn about the effects and causes of drag.
Curated OER
Graphing the Four Forces
Using the Cartesian coordinate system, future flight experts plot points to determine whether or not an airplane will fly. With the four forces of weight, lift, drag, and thrust represented in different quadrants, your physics learners...
Curated OER
Crash Course in Flight
High school physicists demonstrate Bernoulli's Principle by blowing on different items and finding that they do not move in the expected direction! They apply Bernoulli's equation to the flight of an airplane. This well-organized lesson...
Teach Engineering
Get Me Off This Planet
What do Newton's Laws have to do with getting from Earth to Mars?The activities in this resource show how Newton's Laws work with rockets to get them into space. Background information includes facts about orbits and how orbits...
Curated OER
Boomerangs Keep Coming Back
Learners investigate the flight of paper boomerangs. In this flight instructional activity, students examine the flight variables of paper boomerangs, which they make, by investigating the concepts of lift and drag. They examine what...
Curated OER
100 Years of Flight
Students investigate Bernoulli's principle of air pressure and how it
relates to the lift of an airplane. Students identify various Aeronautical vocabulary terms. Students construct a paper glider and experiment with the control surfaces...
Curated OER
Building and Launching Rocket Kits
Students, in groups, build and decorate rocket kits and then launch them.
Curated OER
The Drag of Drag
Students are introduced to drag. Then they summarize drag by saying that the drag is proportional to the square of the velocity. Students then solve problems an example of such a problem: Explain why swimming underwater is faster than...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Which Wing Design Creates the Greatest Lift?
Airplane wings do not all have the same design. With this Science Buddies project you can design your own wings to see which offers the greatest lift. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up consistently beginning with an abstract,...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Go With the Flow
This lesson plan is a great way to observe the flow of water. Kids can do this experiment at home by following this easy procedure, complete with pictures.