Flights of Fancy

1. Flights of Fancy 2nd 9 weeks Flight-Insects, Birds, Airplanes, Hot Air Balloons, Rockets, etc.

2. Overview of the 2nd 9 weeks-Flight Analyze and Comparisons Goals of the study: TSW understand, compare, and analyze how flight takes place for insects, birds, airplanes, rockets, and hot air balloons. TSW improve their thinking talents. TSW improve their technology skills. TSW improve their art and writing skills. TSW become more familiar with future career opportunities.

3. Lesson 1-Metamorphosis Product: Metamorphosis Project Description: You will use your decision making talent to decide what living insect or bird you will transform through a metamorphosis process into a nonliving flying object like a plane , rocket, hot air balloon, etc. Definitions and Questions: What is metamorphosis? What animals go through the metamorphosis process? What are the stages of their metamorphosis?

4. Metamorphosis of a Butterfly

5. Metamorphosis of a Frog

6. Metamorphosis Project-Lesson 1 Continued Directions: 1. Draw your insect in 4 different stages showing how your insect gradually changes from a living object to a nonliving flying object. 2. Label each stage above your drawing. 3. Color the drawings. 4. Create a sculpture of the beginning stage of your project and the ending state. 5. You may do a soap carving, clay sculpture, origami,or recycled sculpture (made from old materials).

7. Lesson 2-Read articles comparing flight of insects, birds, planes, etc. -Those who have not finished metamorphosis project, will continue working until it is complete. -TSW read and take notes comparing the process of flying in the different objects. -Whole group-Create a similarities/differences chart of these objects. -Read about the different types of paper airplanes in preparation for creating their own paper airplane to fly in a contest.

8. Article-How do insects fly? Insects are the only group ofinvertebrates known to have evolved flight. Insects possess some remarkableflight characteristics and abilities, still far superior to attempts by humans to replicate their capabilities. Even our understanding of theaerodynamics of flexible, flapping wings and how insects fly is imperfect. One application of this research is in the engineering of extremely smallmicro air vehicles with lowReynolds numbers. Insect wings are adult outgrowths of theinsectexoskeleton that enable insects tofly. They are found on the second and third thoracic segments (themesothorax andmetathorax), and the two pairs are often referred to as the forewings andhindwings, respectively, though a few insects lack hindwings, even rudiments. Insect wings do not constituteappendages in technical parlance, asinsects only have one pair of appendages persegment. The wings are strengthened by a number of longitudinal veins, which often have cross-connections that form closed "cells" in the membrane (extreme examples includeOdonata andNeuroptera). The patterns resulting from the fusion and cross-connection of the wing veins are often diagnostic for different evolutionary lineages and can be used for identification to the family or evengenus level in many orders of insects.

9. Watch Video Monarch Migration http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/Resources.html

10. Paper Airplanes-Lesson 3 http://www.10paperairplanes.com/ -Finish creating paper airplanes. -Have a paper airplane contest -Planes will be judged in the following areas: 1. Distance 2. Trick 3. Height -Discuss why the planes won. How did the design affect the distance, height, ability to perform a trick.

11. Article-How do Airplanes Work? The source for this explanation is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s “Beginners’ Guide to Aeronautics” which may be found on the web athttp://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/bga.html. We consider this to be the most complete, accurate and authoritative source, and we urge students to continue their study of this topic by reviewing those materials that are right for their age and education. The guides contain text, illustrations, experiments, activities, lessons, free software, downloadable movies and cut-outs that can be used to help you understand these complex topics. How Airplanes Fly Airplanes fly because they are able to generate a force called Lift which normally moves the airplane upward. Lift is generated by the forward motion of the airplane through the air. This motion is produced by the Thrust of the engine(s). The figure below is a simple diagram of the four forces acting on an airplane – Thrust, Lift ,Drag and Weight. Drag is the force produced by the resistance of the air to the forward motion of the airplane. Swish your hand rapidly side-to-side and you will feel that resistance on your hand. http://www.10paperairplanes.com/aerodynamics.html

12. Rockets-Lesson 4 -Create rockets -Discuss the difference between airplane and rocket flight. -http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Paper-Rocket-for-an-Air-Pressurized-Launcher

13. Article-How do rockets work? How do rockets work?Rockets are truly fascinating because they are both extremely simple and very complicated at the same time. They are so simple that you or I could go to the nearest hobby shop and build our own quite easily, but they are also so complex that only 3 countries have actually managed to send humans into space in a rocket.Both the tiny, easy-to-make model rockets and the enormous space shuttles work thanks to the same principle which was realized by Isaac Newton in the 1600s. Newton's Third Law says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Let's think about what this means in non-rocket terms first by looking at two examples. First, as mentioned inthis previous question by Karen Masters, when you let the air out of a balloon, the balloon doesn't just sit there - it flies around the room. The action is the air rushing out of the balloon, and the reaction is the balloon being forced in the opposite direction. Second, imagine you are standing on a skateboard and you throw a football as hard as you can to your friend. You won't just sit there - you will roll a bit in the opposite direction of your throw. The action is your throwing the football, and the reaction is your movement in the other direction.Rockets work in a similar way - mass in the form of fuel is accelerated out the back (the action) and thus the rocket is forced to move forward (the reaction). The strength of the force pushing the rocket forward is called the "thrust". The faster the fuel is thrown out the back of the rocket and the more fuel that is thrown, the faster the rocket will be forced to move forward and thus the greater the thrust. Similarly, if you throw the football to your friend gently, you won't roll as far on the skateboard as you would if you threw the football really hard.So what makes model rockets so much simpler? Well, one reason is that they don't need to be controlled once they are launched so they can use solid fuel The solid fuel has to be something that burns quickly without exploding (for more info seethis previously answered question). When the fuel burns, it turns to gas which is then forced out the back of the rocket. Rockets that use solid fuel are simpler (and thus cheaper), but once you light the fuel, the rocket cannot be controlled. You can't stop the burning or start it over again. This lack of control is why solid fuel rockets are only used for things like models and missiles.Space shuttles obviously need to be controlled to be useful, so they have to use liquid fuel. The fuel (liquid hydrogen, gasoline, or kerosene for example) is pumped into a combustion chamber with an oxidizer (like liquid oxygen) and then burned into a very high-pressure gas. The gas is forced out the back of the rocket, forcing the rest of the shuttle forward. No mass is lost during the conversion, so however much mass in liquid you started with is how much will be converted into gas. The gas leaves the rocket typically at speeds between 5,000 and 10,000 miles per hour! Remember we said the two ways to get more thrust (i.e. a stronger rocket) were to use more fuel or to accelerate the fuel to faster speeds. Although 10,000 miles per hour is incredibly fast, a major problem with shuttles is that you need a huge amount of fuel to propel the average-sized shuttle. A typical shuttle could weigh around 200,000 pounds (including the people and equipment inside) which would require about 4 million pounds of fuel to launch! You can see the fuel weighs MUCH more than the actual rocket!Why can rockets move in space? A previous answer describes Issac Newton and his laws, but I do not find that this increases my personal comprehension. If space is essentially a vacuum, and contains very few particles, what are space-craft pushing against to propel themselves? Why does this work? What is space? If an astronaut were in space, they could not propel themselves(?), so why can a vessel?First, carefully re-read the answer above. Ok, done? Maybe that helped and maybe not, rockets are a hard concept to wrap your brain around. The key to how they work is in Newton's laws, which are simple, but can be tricky to apply correctly. Bear with me, I'm going to use some simple equations to help explain.The real key to how rockets work is in theconservation of momentum. Say you start off sitting on the skateboard mentioned above (this is the same as an astronaut floating in space). Momentum is given by the equation:Momentum = Mass x VelocityIf you're just sitting still, your velocity is zero and so that means your momentum is too. Now suppose you throw something away from you, like the football in the example. That football has some mass and you gave it some velocity away from you. That means the football has a momentum:Momentum of Football = Mass of Football x Velocity of FootballBut we started with zero momentum, and according to the universe, you always have to have the same amount of momentum. So how do we balance out the football's momentum and keep the universe happy? The only solution is for you to gain the same amount of momentum that the football has, but in the opposite direction, so that when you add them together, you get zero!Total Momentum = Mass of Football x Velocity of Football + Your Mass x Your Velocity = 0This adds up to zero because the velocity away from you is opposite your velocity, so you can call one of them negative. Remember: speed is just how fast you're going; velocity also has a direction to it.Now before we get back to rockets, let's pretend that instead of a football, you have a machine gun. What will happen if you start at rest, and then fire the machine gun for a few seconds? Every bullet that you fire has a mass and a velocity away from you, so that means every bullet gives you a little more velocity. Your mass is much larger than the mass of a bullet, so the amount of velocity you gain will be very small for each bullet. In equations:Say we fire 100 bullets: Total Momentum = 100 x Bullet Mass x Bullet Velocity + Your Mass x Your Velocity = 0Same idea, we just add up the momentum from each bullet and give you momentum in the opposite direction.Finally, get rid of the machine gun and get a fire extinguisher. When you give a blast from the extinguisher, compressed CO2 gas comes rushing out. You can think of every individual molecule as acting like one of the bullets from above, it is tiny, but it is going pretty fast, and to balance out the momentum of all those molecules, you move in the opposite direction. (check outthis video if you're skeptical)That fire extinguisher is a rocket! If you were out in space and you opened the valve, the CO2 would still come rushing out and you would still go flying in the opposite direction! It has nothing to do with the extinguisher pushing on the things around it, it's all conservation of momentum. If you send lots of small things (molecules) really fast in one direction, it can add up to make one large thing (you) head off in the other direction.

14. Hot Air Balloons-Lesson 5 -Create hot air balloons-Directions Science Olympiads -Compare flight of hot air balloons to planes and rockets. -Practice flying your balloon. -Explain in your own words how a hot air balloon works.

15. Article-How do hot air balloons work? http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/HotAirBalloon/index.htm

16. Digital Book About Flight-Lesson 6-9 -We will create a class book about flight using the bookemon website. -Each student will use what they have learned to complete 2 pages in our book. -One page will be a reflection about what they learned in writing, and another page will be drawings, photographs, or clip art showing what they learned.

17. Career Focus Entomologist Photographer Pilot Artist Writer Pilot Astronaut Mechanical Engineer Others?--

18. The Election Process/Futuristic Technology How can we improve the election process? (online voting; electoral college)