Airplanes: Explore, Build, Design Kit

Discover the fascinating world of flight with the Airplanes: Explore, Build, Design science kit, an immersive hands-on STEM resource for aspiring aeronautical engineers.

In this kit, students will experience the power of air pressure firsthand, work through guided paper and foam aircraft models, and apply the engineering design process to create their very own flying machines. Students will use these engaging science experiments to explore the fundamental forces of flight--thrust, lift, weight, and drag--while learning specialized aeronautical vocabulary and piloting concepts. The Airplanes kit comes with a full-color Student Workbook and comprehensive Teacher Guide.  This kit contains activities and information that focuses on the phenomenon of flight science and aircraft design.

This Accelerate level kit will provide over 13 hours of learning, educating your students about aeronautics, engineering principles, and the science behind how things fly. 

This kit will guide students through the following activities:

1. Use Bernoulli's principle to inflate a bag with a single breath
2. Create and test different paper airplane designs
3. Build detailed foam aircraft models with working control surfaces
4. Apply the engineering design process to design original aircraft
5. Explore flight forces through hands-on experimentation

Use Airplanes: Explore, Build, Design to answer questions such as:

• How to airplanes generate lift and stay airborne?
• How do engineers and physicists communicate about forces?
• What forces act on aircraft during flight?
• How do pilots control aircraft attitude and direction?
• What is the engineering design process and how is it applied?

Our Airplanes: Explore, Build, Design kit is part of the Science Unlocked Accelerate series and is recommended for grades 3-7.

What's included:

• Binder clips, large
• Binder clip, small
• Foam boards
• Forceps
• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue sticks
• Inflatable bag
• Ruler
• Safety Scalpel
• Sandpaper
• Student Workbook
• Tape
• Teacher Guide
• Templates
  • Dart Paper Airplane
  • Square Paper Airplane
  • Sky Shrimp Foam Airplane
  • Wind Whale Foam Airplane

• NGSS science standards alignment

  • MS-ETS1-1: Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions

  • MS-ETS1-2: Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem

  • MS-ETS1-3: Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of ech that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success

  • MS-ETS1-4: Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved