Need a way to help the youth around you learn about flight? Try out paper airplanes! Most people know how to make a basic paper airplane, but there are other designs out there, some even claiming to be the ultimate paper airplane design. Inside the Dangerous Book for Boys is a two page section on paper airplanes with a few alternate designs you may have not tried.
Some of the concepts you’ll want to feature are lift, drag, thrust and gravity. A project with such inexpensive materials as this is also a great way to help make students aware of the design process. By using working paper models, you can also help students grasp airfoil design and theory. By adjusting their designs and making additional iterations, students can see real examples of how and why planes fly.There are some great resources for understanding flight and designs for paper airplanes. Share with us the comments how you have used airplanes in the classroom as a student and teacher.
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2 thoughts on “Using paper airplanes to learn about flight”
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Hi,
We have run distance and duration contests in school. also run different design contests to encourage students to think of other ways to achieve the same end.
Always fun although the learning may be limited.
We also built a launcher – 2 rubber wheels driven by an electric motor, the paper plane goes in-between them. This way the launch is always the same in contests.