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![]() Students will understand the following:
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![]() In addition to research materials on flight and a computer with Internet access for the whole class, the following materials should be available for each group:
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![]() Expect older students to produce longer, more detailed scientific explanations for flight and aerodynamics. For these students, you may want to omit the experiments. |
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![]() You can evaluate your students on their explanations using the following three-point rubric: Three points: accurate information; clear wording; logical organization Two points: adequate information; wording sometimes unclear; satisfactory organization One point: some inaccurate information; some unclear wording; organization unsatisfactory You can ask your students to contribute to the assessment rubric by determining what information should be included in the explanation. |
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![]() Fabulous Flying Machines! Assign students to work individually or in groups to produce oral or written reports on one specific type of aircraft. Reports should include the distinguishing characteristics, usage, range, and estimated cost of the types they choose. If the whole class is involved, you should end up with information about a wide variety of flying machines. Four Principles The four principles that govern the motion of an object in flight are lift, weight, thrust, and drag . Each force has an opposite companion. Lift is an upward force, while weight is the downward force of gravity; likewise, thrust propels an object forward, while drag exerts a backward force. Each of these forces can be graphically represented by an arrow with a plus sign at the point. Inviting students to work in pairs, instruct each partner draw a diagram of an airplane. One diagram should use arrows to show lift and weight; the other should use arrows to show thrust and drag. Partners can take turns explaining to each other how each force affects a plane in flight. |
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![]() The Simple Science of Flight: From Insects to Jumbo Jets Henk Tennekes, MIT Press, 1996 The step-by-step explanations in this work emphasize the consistency of the fundamental aerodynamic principles that underlie the flight of both animals and objects. This book's unique approach is its consistent intermingling of nature and technology throughout the text and the diagrams to explain the mechanics of flight. The Smithsonian Book of Flight Walter J. Boyne, Wings Press, 1996 The evolution of the technology by which man has attempted to master flight is documented in these works, which draw heavily upon the collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. |
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![]() NASA's Allstar Network: Aeronautics Learning Laboratory for Science, Technology, and Research Become an aeronautical engineer with this interactive flight tutorial from NASA. Rich in vocabulary and scientific principles with diagrams and MPEG movies to help us understand the inventions that help humans fly. National Air and Space Museum Take your students on a cyberspace field trip to America's number one flight museum. Have students gather information as they walk through the halls of the virtual National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The Baals Wind Tunnel Construction plans for your own classroom wind tunnel are provided by Lego and NASA at one the best free Sci/Tech curriculum sites on the Web. |
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![]() Click on any of the vocabulary words below to hear them pronounced and used in a sentence.
Context: And by cambering it, in other words giving it the shape of this bird's wing, with some curvature in it, you can get a sensation of even more lift.
Context: But aerobatic planes are designed to fly upside down.
Context: So you can fly the plane inverted almost in the same attitude with the same nose position as you can when you are upright.
Context: It takes precision and skill to turn cartwheels in the sky.
Context: It flew five miles high on its first altitude test and in future flights it will climb even higher into the stratosphere. |
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![]() This lesson plan may be used to address the academic standards listed below. These standards are drawn from Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education: 2nd Edition and have been provided courtesy of theMid-continent Research for Education and Learningin Aurora, Colorado. Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: science Standard: Understands motion and the principles that explain it. Benchmarks: Knows that laws of motion are used to calculate precisely the effects of forces on the motion of objects; the magnitude of the change in motion can be calculated using the relationship F=ma. Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: science Standard: Understands the nature of scientific inquiry. Benchmarks: Knows that conceptual principles and knowledge guide scientific inquiries; historical and current scientific knowledge influence the design and interpretation of investigations and the evaluation of proposed explanations made by other scientists. Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: science Standard: Understands the nature of technological design. Benchmarks: Knows that a solution and its consequences must be tested against the needs or criteria the solution was designed to meet. Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: science Standard: Understands the interactions of science, technology and society. Benchmarks: Knows that technological knowledge is often not made public because of patents and the financial potential of the idea or inventions; scientific knowledge is made public through presentations at professional meetings and publication in scientific journals. |
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![]() Karen K. Kennedy, chemistry and physics teacher, T.C. Williams High School, Alexandria, Virginia. |
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