[Free Registration/Login Required] Learn about the science behind flying an airplane and play this simulation game to see the effects of wing profile, thrust, angle of attack, and airplane size.

Discover the history of the first airplanes and flying machines, and how the Wright brothers constructed their first successful airplane.

A challenge for students to build a lightweight wing structure that is 12 inches long and can hold up a heavy load without deflecting. This site contains the challenge, a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their...

Kids learn about the Wright Brothers's biography. Inventors of the airplane.

Professor Fukano, the famous scientist, has embarked on a new challenge - piloting around the world in a plane of his own design. There's just one problem: there's not enough fuel to complete the journey. Luckily, there are two other...

An excellent article about how Orville and Wilbur Wright's interest in flight developed and led to the first airplane flight.

Figure out how to keep birds off airport runways by following this experiment with scarecrows.

In this lesson, Robert Burleigh's picture book entitled Flight is used as the mentor text. Students will record their favorite adjectives from the mentor text, rank them according to their favorite, and share them. Students will also use...

Learn about the principles of aerospace engineering and the importance of teamwork by designing and building a paper airplane for a "fly-off" competition. Lesson plan includes introduction to team structure, activity directions, and...

Make a paper airplane and experiment with adding winglets to it to test its performance. The Science Buddies project ideas are set up consistently beginning with an abstract, objective, and introduction, followed by a section on terms,...

A challenge where student create a plane painting machine which draws a design on your airplane. The site includes the challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.

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...

Students learn the fundamentals of aerodynamics in this hands-on exercise.

Smithsonian Education presents "Airplanes and Airports: How to Take Off Without Ever Leaving the Ground." Teachers can download this teaching package that discusses airplanes and airports. Included in the discussion are the forces of...

Commercial airlines took flight soon after the Wright brothers' famous first flights. Read about how the U.S. government encouraged the development of air travel.

Raw data has been released on the missing flight MH370. Includes video.

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...

In this activity, students will learn about Newton's 2nd Law of Motion. They will learn that the force required to move a book is proportional to the weight of the book. Engineers use this relationship to determine how much force they...

While we know there is air around us all the time, we normally do not notice the air pressure. The purpose of this is activity is to use Bernoulli's Principle to manipulate air pressure so we can see its influence on the objects around us.

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate Newton's 3rd Law of Motion, which is the physical law that governs thrust in aircraft. The students will do several activities that show that for every action there is an equal and opposite...

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate how aircraft have decreased the amount of time it takes to transport people and cargo. Students will compute the time it takes to travel between two cities for several modes of...

The purpose of this activity is for the students to draw a design for their own flying machine. They will apply their knowledge of aircraft design and the forces acting on them. The students will start with a brainstorming activity where...

The purpose of this lesson is to help young scholars understand the relationship between the mass and the weight of an object. Students will study the properties of common materials and why airplanes use specific materials.

A learning module that begins with the biography "The Wright Brothers: Air Pioneers" by David White, accompanied by guided reading questions, assessment questions, and discussion questions. The text can be printed as a PDF or assigned...