Session 3: Paper planes and direction

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Objectives 1: Build and Fly a paper plane

Objective 2: Changing the Flying direction of a paper plane

 

Explanation

It is relatively easy to build paper planes and to modify their shape to change the direction they take.

Students will build these planes and then compare the direction they take with the real equipment of planes

Material

• A4 sheet of paper

Maximum duration

45’

Main question to be asked

How do planes change directions?

Introduction/Starters

Ask the students to summarise the previous session about the directions taken by the planes.

Ask the students how they think that planes change direction?

Main activities

Paper plane construction

Prepare a paper plane according to the drawing above starting from an A4 sheet of paper.

Fly your paper plane and observe it.

Change the direction 1

Fold your paper plane according to the drawing below.

Which direction do you think your plane will take?

Fly your paper plane and observe it.

Change the direction 2 (same Procedure than step 2)

Fold your paper plane according to the drawing below.

Which direction do you think your plane will take?

Fly your paper plane and observe it.

Change the direction 3 (same Procedure than step 2)

Fold your paper plane according to the drawing below.

Which direction do you think your plane will take?

Fly your paper plane and observe it.

Link our experiments with a real plane

Take the picture of a real plane and compare the different parts to the action we just saw.

Conclusion/Plenary

With a simple experiment using a paper plane it is possible to understand the functionality of the different moving parts on a plane.

You also may use this model of paper plane.

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