Early Flying Machines

Objectives

• Students will use the Internet to do research and inquiry on early flying machines.
• Students will view published primary source material and artifacts related to the Wright brothers.
• Students will write about their thoughts on how publishing details about scientific experiments may help or hurt scientific developments and individuals.

Description

The site is provided through the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. It allows viewers to see a slide show of artifacts related to the Wright brothers.

Suggested Activities

• Have students attempt to make a paper airplane without any instruction.
• Have students go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wright/about.html, where they will read how the Wright bothers came to achieve their most notable success. Have them pinpoint and write a paragraph about one event or circumstance that may have been most responsible for the brothers' success.

Level Activities

• Have the students connect to http://www.aeromuseum.org/eduHowtoFly.html. Here they can:
read about lift, weight, thrust, and drag.
write a paragraph explaining the forces that make an airplane fly in their own words.
apply what they learned from the Web site by designing and creating a paper airplane.