Crispell students in Pam Montemarano’s seventh-grade science class took a few pieces of paper, designed and created their own airplanes and let them take flight – all for an exercise in measurement.
The class just finished studying the scientific method. For this project, they made their own paper airplanes, whatever size they wanted, using four pieces of printer paper. Then they each chose a variable for their experiment – some threw their planes with different hands, for example.
It was a bit breezy so some of the planes went backwards. One went pretty far forward – it was the biggest of the bunch and flew 928 centimeters (that’s 30.44 feet). Since this was part of a measuring unit, that was an important calculation. The students used yardsticks that were marked with various units of measure, to calculate their flight distance.
Then they used their variable and threw their planes again. This time, one of the planes flew 1,335 centimeters (a whopping 43.8 feet)! The variable used by this student – he closed his eyes!