Message-ID: <3708341C.F58CF547@his.com>
Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 23:55:08 -0400
From: Jeff Cook <jcook@his.com>
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Subject: Re: Teaching high school class on airplanes
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Christopher Glenn wrote:
>  I'm about to start teaching a class to a group of high school students on
> airplanes and am getting worried about boring them.  If anyone in the
> group remembers any particular topic or hands-on demonstration that
> facinated them, I'd appreciate hearing about it.


The single best demonstration of "What Makes Planes Fly?" I've ever seen
can be done with a single sheet of typing paper. You're going to show
Bernoulli's Principle in action to see how a plane's wing gets "sucked
up" into the air...

Hold the piece of typing paper from the bottom so that it hangs back
limp, falling away from you. Now blow strongly away from you, across the
part of the paper in your hand. Damn if the rest of the paper doesn't
rise up like magic as the air pressure of your fast moving breathe
lowers the air pressure above the paper!

I wish *I* had been my Physics teacher in high school.

-- 
Jeff Cook
jcook@his.com
Washington DC area
http://www.cookstudios.com
