Clairbourn School: Eighth Graders’ Science of Flight

Science of Flight: weight, lift, thrust, drag! Clairbourn eighth graders wrapped up their study of the four forces of flight. Students built and compared two different paper airplanes to determine the effect of weight, wing size, and wing design on distance and duration of flight. To explore the effect of turbulence on drag, students constructed paper kites and varied the length of the tails. The kites with smaller tails barely took flight, while the kites with longer tails were able to fly high even with very little wind!

Clairbourn School, 8400 Huntington Drive, San Gabriel, (626) 286-3108 or visit www.clairbourn.org.