Paul V. Cochrane
When the offer to participate in the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute arose, I thought that this would be the time to learn something about an interesting topic, flight. I had a lot of childhood “facts” which I had never seriously investigated and I was sure that these would stand me in good stead. I was never so wrong. Just being able to say “Bernoulli”, is not enough.
My work would be presented to two distinct audiences, teachers and students. It would be wonderful if the students were students in the real sense, but many are not. How do we get them interested in a topic such as flight? I have always thought that a “hands on” approach was best for me and therefore best for my students. The idea of looking at flight through the paper airplane seemed to be a natural thing to do. Many trips to bookstores, libraries and hobby shops enabled me to get a good collection of materials for this paper. My next problem seemed to be, how best could I use these materials? Since Flight did not begin and end with the Wright brothers it would be wise to research flight and to try and put the events of Kitty Hawk into proper perspective.
A long time ago I had become interested in a TV series called
Connections,
hosted and written by James Burke. The premise of the show was that the events which have shaped and continue to shape our world are often the product of seemingly unrelated events, which eventually fall into place and lead to a great global change. Flight was one of these global changes. How would Burke have handled this topic? It’s my guess that it all started in the universal wishes of man to free himself from the chains of gravity, as evidenced in the myths of many cultures. From this starting point we would look at kites, the lateen sail, flight toys (old and new), hot air balloons, propulsion units, hang gliders, and the men who made them. Eventually we would end with the Kitty Hawk experience, the controlled flight of man in an aeroplane.
I think that all of my students could handle this part of the study of flight. The readings are fascinating and delightful. Within these readings are opportunities for experimentation, which can be done in the classroom.
As much as possible the classroom should be an experimental arena, a place where both the student and the teacher are involved, learning from each other. To read that the lateen sail enables a sailboat to move into the wind is not enough. Let us experience it. Get a shop vacuum (with its hose in the exhaust port), take some different diameter dowels, drill them, create a mast and a boom, make a triangular paper sail, glue it into place, and anchor all of this into clay or wood on top of a roller skate or toy truck and experiment, experiment, experiment!
There are a lot of good ideas out there, you just have to look for them. I know that planes fly because of the magnus effect, Bernoulli’s laws and the laws of Newton. I have been a passenger in several airplane flights, but it was not until I made an airfoil out of balsa wood and exposed it to a blast from my shop vacuum, and saw this “wing” rise, did I really believe it. Students are told this and that, all day long, they resent it. When they get a chance to “hands on” class work the class period does not drag and “we” learn more. Yes, our class will be louder than the one which is across the hall, but so what, we are learning out loud.
Some of the activities are complex, too complex for the slow student, so put him or her on some other task. Models which depict yaw, pitch and roll can be made to dress up the classroom. A working model of flight controls can be made by a student who is good with his hands. David Macaulay’s
The Way Things Work
is a wonderful reference book for this. Remember that the Wright brothers got their mechanical aptitude from mother (dad was an intense record keeper), so do not leave the girls out of the model making tasks.
When these and other activities have been done, I will introduce the class to four different paper airplane “texts”. Hopefully we will be able to understand some of the ideas we have learned in a “make and take home” series of lessons. I will start with the very pleasurable
The Great International Paper Airplane Book
and move on through to the complex and demanding
Whitewings
. The first book will be a “turn on”, I usually get questions like, “Will that thing really fly? You must be joking!”. The last book
Whitewings
will be a real work out, not just a cut, crease, tape and fly routine. The students will be required to read (with pencil in hand), work with formulas, and record data, cut, layer, glue, spray and then fly.
