More than 100,000 commercial flights take off every day, but how do the planes fly? Veritasium presents a video explaining the way wings work. It opens with the common misconception, then introduces two seemingly conflicting explanations. Finally, it resolves the conflict so both explanations work.

Concepts

wings, lift, bernoulli's principle, newtonian mechanics

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Relate the experiment to paper airplane wings, which are usually flat rather than curved
• Extend the lesson to helicopter wings, their shape, and how they work

Classroom Considerations

• Relies on prior knowledge of Newtonian physics and Bernoulli's Principle

• This video is hosted on YouTube

Pros

• Includes closed captioning in six languages for ELLs
• Demonstrates multiple ways to approach a problem

Cons

• None

Common Core

SL.9-10.2 SL.11-12.2 RST.9-10.4 RST.11-12.4