Spring SAVY 2019, Day 1 – Wind and Wings: Beginner Biophysics (1st/2nd)
We had a great first week of class! It was great to meet all the students and watch them interact. One of my hopes is that the students enjoy and learn from each other in our class. At the start of class, we talked about what scientists did to be successful, and the students came up with some great ideas that became our class rules.
1. Be safe
2. Ask questions and listen to each other
3. Learn information
These rules will help us be more like scientists in our quest to learn about animal flight.
This week was spent learning about flight. We spent time experimenting with the 4 forces of flight: lift, gravity/weight, thrust, and drag. To help us explore, we did some quick experiments with gravity and lift. I dropped a piece of paper and a wadded up piece of paper. The students compared what happened, and it led to a great discussion on shape and weight since the weight of each piece of paper was the same. Students made some connections to objects that float in water, too. The students took what they noticed and applied it to paper airplanes. We talked about how the four forces of flight might affect the paper airplanes, and the students came up with ideas about how to balance the forces. We tried a couple different models of airplanes and ideas. Next week, we will begin looking at birds and their wings and bodies in relation to flight.
Please send you child dressed for outdoors. If it is not too cold or rainy, we can do many of our flight tests and experiments outside!
Lara Webb
Photos from our Flight Discussion and Paper Airplane Tests
