Making Paper Airplane Gliders
This lesson developed by Reach Out!
Recommended Age Group: Later Elementary and Middle
School
Guiding Questions:
- Can I make a paper glider that will fly?
- What can I do to a glider to make it fly longer or go on a
straighter path?
Objectives
Concepts:
Principles:
- A glider moves through the
air without the help of a motor or engine.
- A glider can move through the air and descend gradually when it
is well designed and built.
- You need to think about aerodynamics to build
a glider that will fly well.
Facts:
- The design of your glider's body and wings has
a lot to do with how well it will sail in the air.
- Adding some weight to
parts of your glider will help it stay up in the air, have
lift , and travel in a straight
path instead of spinning or nosediving.
Skills
- Following Directions
- Making Inferences
- Making Observations
- Drawing Conclusions
Materials:
Each person needs:
- 2 - 4 sheets of construction paper
- 1-2 sheets tissue paper
- Paintbrush
- Cup or small dish to hold rice paste
- 1/4 cup rice paste
- A ladder is great to stand on to sail gliders farther
- handout with instructions for making a
paper glider
To make rice paste for each person you need:
- Spoon or ladle
- 2 quart sauce pan
- Colander
- Bowl larger than the colander to sit in to catch the liquid for
our rice paste
- 1/4 cup rice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups water
- Stove or hot plate
Room Preparation
Each person needs space to make glider and table area when covering
glider with rice paste and tissue paper.
If possible, sail glider from the top of stairs or stand at top of a
ladder.
Safety Precautions
If students make the rice paste, handle stove or hot plate with care
to avoid burns.
Procedures and Activity
Introduction
Share the guiding questions:
- Can I make a paper glider that will fly?
- What can I do to a glider to make it fly longer or go on a
straighter path?
Talk about things that fly and float in the air. How do they do
that? Begin to share and discuss principles about aerodynamics,
lift, wing and body shapes, or the weight or lightness of
objects that fly. Today we will experiment with making gliders
out of construction paper only and then with rice paste and
tissue paper added to see if we can make a glider more
aerodynamic.
Activity
- First, make a paper glider following the instructions on the handout.
Fly the glider and see how well it stays in the air, floats,
glides, and descends to the ground. Does the glider take a nose
dive? Does the glider spin and wobble around? If so, why do
you think it does that? Are parts of the glider too light or
heavy?
- Make your rice paste.
- Put 3 cups of water in your sauce pan.
- Add the 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
- Bring the water to a boil on the stove or hot plate.
- When the water is in a rolling boil, add the 1/4 cup dry
rice and stir.
- Cover the pan and turn the hot plate or stove down to a
low heat. Let the rice simmer for 45 minutes. (If you use
Minute or Quick Rice, follow the directions on the
package or container—this kind of rice will cook a
lot more quickly.
- Put the colander into the larger big bowl. Pour the
rice, water and salt mixture into the colander. The
liquid will drop through the holes of the colander into
the big bowl. This liquid is your rice paste!
- Make another paper glider. Think about what happened to your
first glider. Where do you think a little weight might be placed
on your glider to make it stay in the air longer, to take a
straighter path, or to descend more slowly and avoid going into
a nose dive?
- Put your rice paste into a bowl. With the paintbrush, spread the
rice paste onto the areas of your glider where you want to add
some weight. Tear the tissue paper into the size and shape you
want and glue pieces onto the glider on top of the rice paste.
The rice paste is your adhesive or glue-like material for adding
tissue paper layers and weight to your glider.
- Let your glider dry overnight. Then try flying it. Watch to see
if it stays in the air longer than the paper-only glider. Or how
does it travel—does it spin and wobble or go in a
straighter line and path?
- You might experiment with more gliders and designs. For
example, try making one that is totally covered with a couple of
layers of tissue paper. Or try making one with heavier wings or
a heavier body. What seems to happen when you add weight to
just one wing? See if you can come up with some ideas and
conclusions about gliders and how to make them more aerodynamic.
How does this information help you think about the design of
airplanes?
Closing - Original Question
Ask again:
- Can I make a paper glider that will fly?
- What can I do to a glider to make it fly longer or go on a straighter
path?
Evaluation
What kinds of observations did you make? Can you draw some conclusions
about making gliders more or less aerodynamic? Think about how you launched
the gliders. Are there certain arm or wrist movements that made the glider
fly better or worse? Did you try flying the gliders just while standing on
the floor? Did you try flying them from an elevation, such as the top of a
flight of stairs or the top of a ladder? What difference do you think that
made?
Extension Ideas
Try The
Great Paper Airplane Challenge.
Find many paper plane designs at this Directory of
Plans and at Alex's Free
Paper Airplanes site.
Prerequisite Vocabulary
- Aerodynamic
- The forces and things that happen to an object moving through the air
- Air
- The mix of invisible gases that suuround the whole earth.
- Airborne
- An object that moves through the air
- Aircraft
- An object that moves through the air
- Glide
- Something that becomes airbound and moves through the air, gradually
descending
- Glider
- An object without a motor or enging that can become airborne and
descend in the air
- Lift
- When your glider seems to ascend or go up and rise in the air
- Weight
- When you make something heavier such as adding rice paste and tissue
paper to your glider's wings, body or nose
- Wings
- The part of your glider on both sides of the body that helps is glide
and stay up in the air
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