Read Works
Read Works: The Paper Airplane Contest
[Free Registration/Login Required] A literary text about a class that has a paper airplane contest. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Other
Ken Blackburn: Paper Airplanes
Information on paper airplane designs, history, and contests. Click on "Paper Airplane Aerodynamics" for an analysis of the world record holding paper airplane design.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Paper Airplanes
At this site students will use origami to fold a paper airplane that fly better than the classic dart airplane.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Better by Design
The purpose of this activity is to use a scientific method to determine the effect of control surfaces on a paper glider. The students will construct a paper airplane/glider and test its performance to determine the base characteristics...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Take Off With Paper Airplanes
This lesson introduces students to the art of designing an airplane through paper airplane constructions. The goal is that students will learn important aircraft design considerations and how engineers must iterate their designs to...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: Defining an Engineering Design Problem With Paper Airplanes
In this fun lesson, you will be the "customer" ordering a paper airplane, and your student teams will be engineering companies that will manufacture planes. Before they start making planes, they need to define the criteria and...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Are You in Control?
This lesson teaches the engineering method for testing wherein one variable is changed while the others are held constant. Young scholars compare the performance of a single paper airplane design while changing the shape, size and...
Other
Easy to Make Paper Airplanes
Have fun making different kinds of flying vehicles. You will learn how to make a paper airplane, helicopter, rocket, blimp, etc.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Building a Paper Airplane Using Bernoulli's Principle
This is a culmination activity used after middle schoolers have studied Bernoulli's Principle as part of a unit on forces and fluids. Students will use the Internet, textbooks, library resources and their cooperative learning group to...
Michigan Reach Out
Reach Out!: Making Paper Airplane Gliders
Students learn the fundamentals of aerodynamics in this hands-on exercise.
Discovery Education
Discovery Education: Inventors and Inventions 2: Air and Space
After discussing important flying inventions, learners explore technological design by making paper airplanes.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Hedy Lamarr: Engineering and Invention
Discover Hedy Lamarr's contributions as a woman in STEM in this video from the American Masters film, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Lamarr has received belated acknowledgement for inventing frequency hopping, the basis of secure...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Up, Up and Away! Airplanes
The airplanes unit begins with a lesson on how airplanes create lift, which involves a discussion of air pressure and how wings use Bernoulli's Principle to change air pressure. Following the lessons on lift, students explore the other...
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Hoopster
Students create their own airplane using straws and other materials and learn the principles of aerodynamics.
Exploratorium
Exploratorium: Spinning Blimps
Students create a blimp and then experiment with the design to improve its aerodynamics.
NASA
Nasa: Glenn Research Center: Teamwork in Aerospace Activity
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...
Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement (SMILE)
Smile: Lab Activity: Aviation
This site from the Illinois Institute of Technology provides a student lab activity in which the flight of a paper airplane is investigated and studied. Designed for primary grades, but easily adaptable for junior high students.