(March 2013, repeated April & May 2014)
For ages 7-12
This program was inspired by and adapted from Amy Koester’s which she blogged about at the ALSC blog and her own blog The Show Me Librarian.
The Science of Flight
Airplane Forces: Weight, Lift, Thrust, and Drag
Bernoulli’s Principle: following Amy’s lead, I demonstrated this using a hairdryer and a ping pong ball.
Make Your Own Paper Airplanes
I gave the kids 3 options: The Dart, the Arrow, and the Moth. The instructions from www.10PaperAirPlanes.com were clear, but the pictures were animated and froze in odd places when printed. To overcome this, I folded a sheet of paper for each step.
After they made these 3 options (often several times) they branched out by using the Paper Airplanes book series by Christopher L. Harbo (Capstone Press). My favorite from the books was the Air Shark.
It was a windy day, so we tested our planes inside the meeting room.
I also had a book display of aviation themed books as well as paper airplane making books.