AvSTEM
Aviation • Science • Technology • Engineering • Mathematics
Virtual Learning
Paper Airplane Activity
Federal Aviation Administration
William J. Hughes Technical Center
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Learning Objectives
- Understand basic principles that allow airplanes to fly
- Learn how the design of an airplane mimics nature
- Record measurements
- Analyze data
- Interpret results of an experiment
The intention of this packet is to aide teachers and/or parents as
they teach and conduct a fun aviation-focused STEM activity. The
following pages are not instruction sheets for your children or
students. Rather, they are to serve as a guide as you lead the lesson.
You know your children and students best so this guide leaves it up
to you to scale content up or down depending on the age of your
children.
Paper Airplane Activity
- Sheets of 8.5”x11” paper
- Stop watch*
- Tape measure*
- Ruler*
- Markers*
- Stickers*
- White board*
- Graph paper*^
Supply List
* All supplies are optional except for sheets of 8.5”x11” paper!
^ Optional for older students
How do airplanes fly?
What part of an airplane
helps it fly?
How do airplanes fly?
Other than airplanes, can you think of something else that
flies?
What do birds and insects have that an airplane also has?
Use these questions to
start a discussion about
flight!
These two questions should spark a fun discussion about how
an airplane’s wings allow it to fly. Then use the following
questions to talk about how structures and systems often
mimic nature.
Vocabulary
Biomimicry – the imitation of elements found in nature to
solve human design challenges
Hopefully, the answers will include birds and insects, and the
common characteristic with an airplane are their wings.
A wing is an air deflector. As an airplane (or bird) moves
through air, the wing pushes air downward and then the air
pushes the wing upward! This is called lift, and lift keeps an
airplane in the air.
Let’s Talk About Wings!
Now that we know how airplanes fly, we’re going to make our
own paper airplanes to see which designs stay in flight the
longest!
Hopefully, the questions and resulting discussion from the
previous page led to a conclusion that many of the things that
fly have wings. So let’s talk about wings and why creatures
and structures with wings can fly.
Vocabulary
Deflect – to turn away from an object; so a wing is an air
deflector because it turns air away from itself
Lift – upward force that holds the airplane in the air
Science Concept
(for 4
th
grade and up)
Lift is an application of Newton’s 3
rd
Law of Motion. For
every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Make Your Own Paper Airplane!
1. Fold paper in half.
2. Unfold and then fold the
corners into the center line.
Dart
3. Fold the top edges to
the center.
4. Fold the plane in half.
5. Finally, fold the wings down
to meet the bottom edge of
the plane’s body.
This guide includes instructions to make two paper airplane designs.
1. Fold paper in half. (same as for the dart)
2. Fold the top edge down
about 2 inches..
Hunting Flight
3. Fold the top edge down
again to double up the
thick part.
4. Repeat the previous
step one more time.
Make Your Own Paper Airplane! (cont.)
5. Fold the top corners away
from you to the back center
line.
6. Fold the plane in half
towards you.
7. Fold both sides down
to create the wings and bend
the edges up for speed. The
body should be about a 1/2 inch.
Make Your Own Paper Airplane! (cont.)
Finished Products
Dart Design
Decorate!
Use stickers and
markers to make the
designs truly unique.
More complex designs can be found at the following
website: https://www.foldnfly.com/. Encourage
older children to try several designs and even create
their own!
Hunting Flight
Design
Which Design Flies Longer?
Steps
1. Find an open, indoor area to fly the paper
airplanes.
2. Record the name of each design on the
table. (See the table on the next page.)
3. Measure and record the wingspan (wing tip
to wing tip across the airplane) of each
paper airplane.
4. Fly each design three times. For each trial:
a) Use a stopwatch (your cell phone works!)
to time how long the plane is in the air.
b) Record each time on the table.
After everyone has made and decorated their paper airplane(s), it’s
time to do a little experiment to see which design stays airborne the
longest. This activity can be a structured like a science experiment, or it
can be a fun activity for everyone to observe the results.
Why conduct three trials for each design? Multiple trials ensure the
data (time recorded) is reliable. Look at the data. Are the three times
for each design similar? Is there one that isn’t close to the other
measurement? If so, it’s called an outlier. Typically, outliers are
removed from datasets prior to a mathematical analysis.
Vocabulary
Outlier – a value that is much smaller or larger than the other values in
a dataset
Tip
For younger
students,
approximate the
measurements:
Did the plane fall
to the ground
quickly? Or did it
fall slowly?
These steps can
be scaled up or
down depending
on the grade
level of students.
Which Design Flies Longer? (cont.)
Use this table or recreate it on a whiteboard to record the
results of the experiment.
Design Name Wingspan (inches) Flight Time
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Activity Analysis
Which design stayed in flight the longest?
- What characteristics does that plane have?
- Are its wings wide or narrow?
Which stayed in flight the shortest?
- What characteristics does that plane have?
- Is its wingspan wide or narrow?
Ideas for middle school students:
- Conduct the farthest distance activity
- Calculate the average distance for each design based on three trials
- Create a scatter plot of wingspan verses distance flown
- Modify designs to build a paper airplane that flies farther and stays
in flight longer
Other activity ideas:
- Farthest distance – use a tape measure to record the distance each
design flies
- Most cargo – tape coins or buttons to each plane to see which one
can carry the most cargo
After all paper airplanes have flown and all data is recorded, use these
questions to help draw conclusions from the activity.
You will notice that designs with larger wings stayed in the air the
longest. But you probably also noticed that designs with larger wings
also did not fly as far. While we focused on lift for this lesson, there
are other forces that effect an airplane’s flight. Larger wings allowed
the paper airplane to stay in the air for a longer time, but the larger
wings also created more drag, which prevented it from flying farther.
Follow-on Activities
