It’s a Monday afternoon at the Aggassiz Elementary School after school program in Jamaica Plain – a neighborhood in Boston. I’ve been coming to this program for about 5 years, testing out new science and engineering materials, so I know the site well. On this day we have 8 kids, ranging in age from about 9 -11. All but two are new to this kind of activity.
0:00 I introduce myself and my two camera people, Martha and Matt, and I have the children tell me their names. I write these down on an index card which I carry with me throughout the session. I tell the children that over the next few weeks they will design and test paper airplanes made only of the simplest materials – 3 x 5 index cards, a very small amount of tape and some different kinds of metal paper clips. I tell them we are filming how they make their gliders, and how they talk about them, and how they work together, and how I help them (the kids) make their airplanes fly well, so that I can help other teachers do this activity with other children.
3:24 . I state the challenge for today – make a paper airplane (a glider) that flies straight and far. We talk about the word glider. Some of the children agree that not all planes have engines and that birds sometime fly without flapping their wings for periods of time and that flying without an engine is sometimes called "gliding." Then I ask them what I mean by flying. They mostly look surprised by the question, so I throw a metal clip up in the air and catch it, and then I throw it across the room. I ask, “Did that fly?” Jasmarie says yes about the second throw “….because it was flying longer;” and she makes a stretching-out-bubblegum gesture with her hands. Sarah says no, “….because you actually helped it. You actually threw it. It didn’t actually fly.” She shakes her head in emphasis.
These and other responses are circular (“…it’s not flying because it didn’t glide…”) but it’s clear that the kids recognize that flight is not so simple to define. The distinction (the defining characteristic of a flying object) I’m hoping they will arrive at through working on these gliders is something like this: a flying object (bird or plane) rides ON the air. Things that merely pass through the air (the binder clip thrown across the room) would be better described as missiles and you wouldn't use the word "flying" to describe how they travel.
In fact, a missile travels most easily when there is no air to hinder its passage at all. Flying, on the other hand, is impossible without air (or some other fluid medium)! At a more advanced level of understanding one might notice that all flight is a trade off between riding on the air, and forcing a way through it, and that some objects are really flyer/missiles. A pitched baseball (curveball) both uses and is hindered by the air.
I don’t engage the kids on this level yet, though. I’m just fishing for their thinking at this stage, and introducing the habit of naming, describing and defining the things and ideas we are working with.
My other hope is that the experience of designing and testing their gliders will develop in the children the habit of looking for patterns and connections between the design actions they take (the shape and other features they work into their planes) and the way it does or does not do what it is supposed to do – flying straight and far.
8:20 . We’ve been talking for almost five minutes about “flying”. That’s enough talk. I tell the kids it time to get to work. I ask who has made paper airplanes before. Most say they have. Then I tell them that this time they will have to work with and unusual rule: they may not fold or bend or tear the index cards at all.
Most of the kids look puzzled but interested.
9:30 .. I have Awilda pair them up, get their materials and start trying to figure out the problem.
10:46 . Hector is holding the materials, Jaxander is looking on. Hector’s brow is furrowed. He picks up a card and a binder clip and starts to fold the card. Jaxander looks alarmed – he turns to the instructions on the chalk boards and tells Hector he’s not allowed to fold the card. Hector is shocked and disappointed. “Ah, that’s messed up,” he says and lets the materials fall to the table.
At other tables responses ranges from amused engagement to bewilderment. Sarah and Amie are trying to tape the two cards together; Jesmarie is struggling to peel tape from a roll. Her partner, Stephanie, leans in close but is looking around the room – everywhere except at what Jesmarie is doing; Francesca and Alberto sit across from one another, taking turns making various T shapes with the two cards and a small piece of tape. The room is quiet. The kids are focused but none of them has any idea how to proceed.
13:10 . Hector is still doing most of the hand work, but Jaxander is taking a keen interest. I come by and suggest they try out their plane. They don’t seem very interested in that suggestion.
13:50 . Amie gets up and throws her “plane.” It flutters to the floor directly at her feet. She giggles, picks it up and shuffles back to her partner, Sarah. “Maybe it needs a little bit of weight,” says Sarah.
16:18 . Hector launches his plane from his seat. It travels forward about 2 feet and then nose dives to the floor. I happen to be passing again. “What would you say?” I ask.
Jaxander: “It was kind of flying a little bit…..”
Charlie: “Let’s describe exactly what it did. You say (pointing to Jax) it flew a little bit. What do you mean by that?”
Jaxander struggles for the words to describe the path but gestures with his hand showing the exact flight path of the plane –level for a few feet and then curving down to the floor. Hector talks over him, but I keep my attention firmly on Jaxander and motion to Hector to listen to his partner too.
Charlie: “OK, so what you saw was that it went straight for a while and then it went down (also gesturing with my hand.) Do you agree with that [Hector]?”
16:50 . Hector seems to ignore me and slides his plane across the table to launch it off the side. It crashes to the floor again. “Nope”, he says apparently in delayed answer to my question.
Charlie: (to Hector) “What do you think? It did do a little bit of flying don’t you think….”
Hector (to Jaxander): “Let me see the front and back pieces….” He grabs the plane and takes off both of the heavy binder clips and repositions them both near the front of the plane.
17:27 . Martha (camera person): “What are you moving around Hector? Are you just changing the weight a little bit?” Hector mumbles yes as he picks up the plane and holds it over his head, studying it intently. He drops his plane on the table.
17:38 .Hector. “OK, now we know….” “Let’s try it like this.” He takes off both weights and launches the plane at a very flat angle across the table – tail first. The plane flips in the air and lands on the table. “OK,” he says. “So we need to have enough weight on it but not so much…”
17:50 . Jaxander is trying to say something about the plane but Hector ignores him. He picks up the plane again, repositions the weights again and says, “OK, I have and idea now.”
The camera pans away to Amie and Sarah.
We are less than five minutes into the hands on time (out of a possible 20 – 30 minutes.) All the kids have been working at the problem with more or less the same intensity as Hector and Jaxander, but one wonders how much longer they can keep it up. Many program leaders get nervous at around this moment – fearing that unless the kids start having success pretty soon they will loose interest and start acting out. The temptation to tell the kids what to do at this point is tremendous, and for all the best of reasons – the desire for the kids to have a rewarding experience; there pressure to use limited science time well; the dislike of the noise and chaos that may soon develop.
And so we confront another important objectives of this kind of activity – to simultaneously increase the kids’ tolerance for uncertainty and “failure” and while also showing them strategies for arriving at success more quickly. Experience shows that telling them the “answer” achieves neither of these. Unfortunately, experience also shows that NOT telling them the answer may not achieve these objectives either! I try to steer a path somewhere between those two extremes.
I move around the room constantly, checking in with each group for 5 seconds here, 30 seconds there – never letting more than a minute or so pass before returning to each group again. Though the kids sometimes ignore me [e.g. Hector,] I feel sure that my presence from time to time validates their efforts, keeps them on track, allows me to drop hints where appropriate, gives me a feel for their frustration level. Throughout this time I am carrying in my hand a glider which I know works well. I’m hoping I don’t have to “show” it to the kids too soon, but its ready, for whenever I really need it.
What the camera reveals, in a way that I was unable to keep track of myself, is that the kids are highly persistent in their efforts to solve this problem. They offer a continuous stream of descriptions and explanations to me or to no one in particular as they work. Even Hector -- outwardly taciturn and aloof -- several time says things like .. “I have an idea”, or “Now we know….” He, and all the others repeatedly try new arrangements of the weights (clips) and reveal the germs of new theories about the problem with comments like, “It needs enough weight.. but not so much.”
I try not to react too much either to their exuberance or their occasional lack of manners -- their successes or their "failures." I've found it best to let each do it in their own way for a while, as they check out the rules and the norms of this unusual way of doing things. You loose some of them sometimes, but its surprising how it keeps others in the loop.
19:39 .. Francesca and Alberto’s glider consists of a single, horizontal “wing” card (long side forward) with the other card taped vertically along the center line underneath (a sort of rudder underneath the wing.) They have a binder clip at the front and the back and paper clips in various places. Francesca and Alberto are taking turns throwing and adjusting the plane, which generally tumbles and falls to the ground fairly close to the thrower.
Francesca: “It still falls down.”
Alberto: “It’s too heavy… try this…” He takes off the (heavy) binder clips and starts replacing them with (lighter) paper clips.
20:45 . I come by and seeing two binder clips on the table I ask if I can take one of them away from them. They agree. I ask if I can see it fly with just one clip. Francesca takes off the paper clips Alberto has been putting on and Alberto fits one binder clip to the front of the plane. He launches it and it “flies” better than ever before – for about five feet – before turning and diving to the floor. The kids are impressed.
C: “Is there any flying going on here.”
Both kids think there is and both describe how their plane traveled, using hand gestures again. I ask them to launch it again. Francesca is about to launch the plane with the weight at the back, but gets distracted and apparently without noticing it, turns the plane around and launches it with the clip at the front. It flies again for a few feet. They are pleased. They try a few more times. Then I say:
C: “I’m going to ask you to try something else. Try throwing it with the weight at the back.”
Alberto throws the plane. It tumbles in the air immediately and falls on the table.
C: “What do you learn from that? I won’t say anything else right now.” I leave.
For the next few minutes I make the rounds of the other groups. Jesmarie and Stephanie have a T design quite similar to Francesca and Alberto. They have a single clip at the front and it flies about as well as its cousin – a few feet if thrown with some force. Amie and Sarah have a flat design that is identical to my own – two cards taped end to end (a pair of wings, hinged at the center and with no body in between) with weights at the front and back. I suggest to Amie that she take off the back weight.
23:56 . I launch my glider and if swoops gracefully across the room. Every child, Awilda (the program leader) and Amie’s mother, who has been waiting patiently for her daughter to leave, gasps with amazement. Francesca rushes to retrieve my glider. “Hey, I want that one,” She says.
So, almost 25 minutes into the session, we are finally at the AHAH moment. The kids finally got what they wanted – the “answer” – a glider that flies with true elegance and about which there is no debate. It is unquestionably flying. The effect is tremendous. Everyone wants to mimic my simple design and the race is on for the truly spectacular glider. If there was any flagging of interest or engagement a moment earlier it is gone now. The whole tenor of the room changes as the kids abandon their earlier designs and start to make new gliders.
So why not give them the basic design from the start? Isn’t it a tease to let them spend all that time on designs that they will almost certainly abandon and which are unlikely to work well? I don’t think so, myself. I think a great deal was achieved and practiced in that 25 minutes. Kids had to pull themselves up by the boot straps from their initial bewilderment – they generally had no clue whatsoever how to begin. And for the most part they did it. True, I gave plenty of little hints, just to keep them afloat, but most of their experimentation and testing came from their own initiative and their own desire to make a flyer. They may not notice this time that they over came the odds largely through their own skill and determination, but that’s a goal for this project – that they notice exactly that.
And some of them came pretty close to getting real flyers anyway. The two T design gliders (Jesmarie and Stephanie; Francesca and Alberto) really did “fly” for short distances and both those groups were close to noticing that the weight had to be at the front to make it work at all. The other two groups each made wide-flat wings, like mine. Neither of them flew very well, but all the kids did a great deal of noticing and testing and thinking about what was going on. No text-book “scientific method” at this stage, but we wouldn’t expect that anyway yet. You can tell kids to follow the steps of the so-called scientific methods, but unless they experience the merits of observing and theorizing and testing and so on in the context of their own desire to understand something, it will probably be a shallow and heartless exercise.
That day we took some very small steps towards scientific literacy and confidence. The kids will have to take them again and again before they really stick -- before they become habitual. The struggle for the AHAH is what makes it feel worthwhile. Like any game there has to be challenge for it to be really satisfying – for it to be worth learning the skills and the rules. If you take this activity in the context of the whole project, and if the children experience many such projects, my hope is that that they will notice (consciously perhaps, but not necessarily), and take to heart several key lessons: