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
Forces of Flight - Lift
Students design and test paper airplanes to understand the concept of lift and how it affects flight. This technology-based Science lesson is excellent for use with upper-elementary and middle-level learners and uses spreadsheet software...
Teach Engineering
May the Force Be With You: Lift
Get the class up and going with a instructional activity 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.
Florida International University
Designing an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV): Concepts in Lift, Drag, Thrust, Energy, Power, Mass, and Buoyancy
Engineer an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to study concepts of physics. Using household materials, collaborative groups design and build an AUV and then test Newton's Laws of Motion as they apply them in underwater environments...
Curated OER
Wright Again: 100 Years of Flight
Aspiring aeronautical engineers demonstrate different forces as they construct and test paper airplanes. This lesson plan links you to a website that models the most effective paper airplane design, an animation describing the forces...
Curated OER
Lifting a Load
Students experiments with levers to determine if the amount of force needed to lift a load is always the same. In this physics lesson plan, students use Lab-Pro data collector as they experiment with the fulcrum placement to measure the...
Curated OER
Force and Motion Project
In this force and motion worksheet, students create a picture book and answer 7 questions on force and 12 questions on motion. There are 4 extra credit questions.
Teach Engineering
Energy Basics
Power up your lessons with an energetic resource. Scholars learn about work, force, energy, and power. They consider the relationships between these quantities through hockey puck scenarios and make calculations using formulas.
Curated OER
Lift and Drag: Principles of Flight and the Soaring Imagination
Students construct models of early gas balloons and gliders. In this balloon and glider lesson, students create models of early gas balloons and gliders, discover how the forces of lift and drag effect aircraft in flight, and put on...
University of Southern California
Design and Test an Air Lift Siphon
Build an air lift siphon using your mad physics skills! Learners first investigate the importance of circulating water in aquaponics systems. They then use density to their advantage as they engineer an air lift siphon
Curated OER
What Can We Lose? What Do We Lose as we Gain Force With A Lever?
Third graders view a demonstration of a teeter totter as a basis for assessing pre-knowledge of a lever. They create a KwL chart. Students work in small groups to conduct a variety of experiments. The first requires students to tie books...
Curated OER
What Makes Airplanes Fly?
Students examine force and conduct activities that model parachutes and helicopters. In this airplanes lesson students identify the forces that make airplanes fly higher and land.
Curated OER
How the force of air helps an airplane fly.
Students appropriately the following terms in sentences: drag, thrust, gravity, aerodynamics and lift.
Curated OER
Force and Gliders
Students explore physics by creating data graphs in class. In this flight properties lesson, students read the book Flying Machine and identify the force, resistance and construction necessary to keep a glider in the air. Students...
Curated OER
An Uplifting Experience
Fifth graders conduct flight experiments. In this uplifting experience lesson plan, 5th graders build an airfoil and place in a variety of conditions to observe the results of lift and force in flight, as well as angle of attack....
Curated OER
Flight
Students are introduced to the four forces of flight--drag, lift, thrust, and weight--through a variety of fun-filled flight experiments. They "fly" for short periods and evaluate factors that might either increase or decrease their...
Curated OER
Boomerangs Keep Coming Back
Students investigate the flight of paper boomerangs. In this flight lesson, students examine the flight variables of paper boomerangs, which they make, by investigating the concepts of lift and drag. They examine what happens when an...
Curated OER
Junkyard Wars-Investigating More Electromagnets
Fourth graders conduct an investigation in order to determine a way to change the strength of an electromagnet's magnetic force. After conducting "control" lifts with their electromagnet, groups make initial changes, record data, and...
Curated OER
Powerful Pulleys
Students explore the building of a pyramid and how pulleys were used to change the direction of applied force. They demonstrate the mechanical advantage of using a pulley and apply it to modern engineering.
Curated OER
What Makes Thing Fly?
Second graders study lift, drag and thrust from a real flight instructor. In this physical science lesson students build and fly paper airplanes and experiment with variations and design.
Curated OER
Ar.... What Gives?
Young scholars investigate the properties of air through inflated objects. In this physical science lesson, students examine gas as a state of matter. Student push on inflated objects and note the space the gas has taken up inside. Young...
Curated OER
Power in the Tubes
Eighth graders investigate the relationship between force, distance and time. In this physical science lesson students compute the work done, graph and find the relationship between work and power.
Curated OER
Spin Art
The best part about spin art is that is demonstrates the concept of centrifugal force. Explore the magical spin of gravity as you make colorful art. This lesson idea is short, very simple, and requires a spin art machine.
Cornell University
Physics of Flight
Up, up, and away! Take your classes on a physics adventure. Learners explore the concepts important for flight. They experiment with the Bernoulli Principle while learning the forces that act on airplanes in flight.