The students completed most of the construction, decoration and flying of the kite in a group setting, but each had to take an individual quiz at the conclusion of the activity to demonstrate mastery of the computation and research pieces of the activity. Calculate the altitude of their group’s kite on flight day. Respond to the contribution that a tail makes to the flight of the kite as well as the role of the dihedral angle in flight.

Compare and contrast the rhombus and the kite. Prove why the formula for the area of a kite is one-half the product of the diagonals. Review Newton’s Third Law of Motion and Bernoulli’s Principle. Research and learn the four forces in the aerodynamics of flight. Investigate the contributions of William Eddy to kite flight. We also wanted students to draw on their knowledge in other classes, but with a minimum need for research. The angles made by non-congruent sides had to be congruent. Its large diagonal had to bisect the small diagonal.ģ. The kite had to have exactly two pairs of congruent sides.Ģ. The kite had to meet certain geometric qualifications:ġ. In our Honors Geometry kite activity, students were instructed on the materials and options needed to complete each group’s kite. Our learning-based projects can help to fill this need. Youngsters still need to learn about planning, following directions, and tweaking plans for successful outcomes. Time and again the parent modeled the process of completing an entire “real-life” project, and the child would then see its usefulness and reap the rewards of the completed work.įamily dynamics have changed, so our world no longer offers children this familial learning experience as often as it used to. They usually accompanied the parents to collect or purchase materials. They heard their parents discuss the pros and cons of different approaches to the chore. Kids witnessed their parents plan the activity. One of the beauties of this task was to watch a child observe and participate in a project from the beginning to its end.

Growing up many years ago in rural Tennessee, it was common in our small town to see children helping out on their parents’ or grandparents’ farms. Good question! So this year, we started shaping a project around kite construction and ideas of the aerodynamics of flight. Last year during the construction activity, one student asked me, “Why can’t we make kites that actually fly?” In previous years, I taught the construction of a kite by using a compass and straight edge to draw two isosceles triangles, one inverted on the other. Kites have distinct characteristics of measure and symmetry. Most of my geometry students are surprised to learn that a kite is actually a type of quadrilateral, a four-sided figure such as a rectangle, rhombus or trapezoid.

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