Handouts are available below

Big Idea

Building and testing paper airplanes is one of those simple activities I know many science teachers do to teach scientific method and that students of all ages can do. Today, I want to share what I’m doing with the paper airplane project with my students to get MORE out of them – more creativity and more opportunities for learning – because the paper airplane experiment is a great opportunity to use Design thinking and test things rapidly.

Long story short, to get more out of students on this project, I set limits to the project, make prototyping a requirement, and assess and assign marks to the process. Today, I want to share the 3 things I’m doing to teach CER (Claim Evidence Reasoning) this year. 

First: Set Limits to the Paper Airplane Activity

One way to get students to be more creative about their paper airplane projects is to set limits. Some of the limits I set are taken from the Red Bull Paper Airplane Competition, which include (1) folding a paper plane on the day of the competition with paper that I supply, (2) only folds are allowed – no glue, tape, or cuts are allowed, and (3) throwing the plane down a hallway and releasing the plane behind the starting line. These limits force students to be more creative with their designs – especially since they can’t tape or cut their planes, they’ll need to experiment with folds. And, students need to be more creative with their throwing – especially since the hallway has a low ceiling, students can’t just throw their planes like they would a baseball outdoors.

Next: Make Prototyping a Requirement

Another thing I do is require students to create and test multiple prototypes over two or three weeks. In Design Thinking, this is known as rapid prototyping. Through rapid prototyping, students really get to understand the problems with their planes and to develop a greater number of and better solutions to these problems. Having students make just one plane or giving students just one period or one day to complete the project is simply not enough time for students to do a deep dive into what makes a paper airplane fly far. We don’t want a student to make just any paper plane – which tends to happen if we just require one prototype. Requiring 3 or 4 prototypes gets students to try new ideas, fail at some of them, and learn from their failures.

Finally: Assess the Process

I assign marks to assess the process. For example, if I want students to make one prototype a week, I assess each of my students’ prototypes. I record how far the first prototype built on week 1 went and I compare that measurement to how far the 2nd prototype built in week 2 went. I assess or improvement. If there’s 25% improvement, students get an emerging mark (or 1 out of 4 if you’re using numbers), if there’s 50% improvement, then it’s developing, 75% is proficient, 100% is extending. This assessment prevents students from just constructing anything for their prototypes and requires them to put some real attention on their prototypes, which will only help make the final product better. I also require students to write a brief report for each prototype, and I assess the distance that their final paper planes travel. In all, I have at least 5 marks taken from this project, and those marks are directly related to science and engineering practices.

That’s how I’m doing it this year and it’s still a work in progress. How do you do it? Please email me a strategy or two – I’m interested to know. 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – Paper Airplane Activity

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