Flying



Flying

Activity sheet

CHILDREN ARE BORN SCIENTISTS – THEY LOVE TO EXPLORE AND DISCOVER. THERE ARE MANY ACTIVITIES THAT YOU CAN ENJOY DOING AT HOME WITH YOUR LITTLE SCIENTIST.

Questions

• How many things do you know of that fly?

• What animals can you think of that fly?

Try This At Home

Flying Feather

See a video demonstration of this Science Time activity at questacon.edu.au

You Will Need

• An empty squeezy sauce bottle

• A small feather or a small piece of light-weight paper

What To Do

1. Place the pointy bit of the feather into the top of the bottle.

2. Give the bottle a squeeze and see how high you can make the feather fly up.

3. You can also make the feather disappear! To do this squeeze all of the air out of the bottle and hold it squeezed.

4. Put the feather in the top and let go of the bottle. The feather is gone!

5. To get the feather out again, just tip the bottle upside-down and give it another squeeze.

What’s Happening?

When you squeeze the sauce bottle a puff of air comes out. We can’t see the air but we can see what effect it has on objects, like the feather.

Discover More

How high can we make the feather fly? What other things can we make fly? What could you make fly if you used more air? Try to make a ping pong ball or balloon fly using a hairdryer. Get an adult to help you and have the hairdryer setting on cool.

Did You Know?

• Birds have light skeletons which is one of the reasons they can fly. Some birds even have hollow bones.

• If a human had wings proportionately the same size as a bird’s they would not be able to fly because our bones are too heavy.

Try These Other Activities

• Build paper planes: Launch them somewhere they won’t hurt anyone or break anything.

• Fly a kite at your local park: Does it fly better if there is more wind? How high it can fly?

• Go bird watching at your local park: What birds do you see? What colours are they?

Sing Songs

Sing these songs with your child.

Down At the Airport (to the tune of Down At the Station)

Down at the airport early in the morning

See the big aeroplanes all in a row.

See the airplane pilot turn on the engine.

Up in the sky, way up high

Off we go!

Fly Through the Sky by the Wiggles. Watch the video at

Read Books

Have fun finding more at your local library, book store or online book shop.

• Magic School Bus Taking Flight: A Book About Flight by Scholastic Publishing

• The Waterdragon and the Magpie-goose by Garry Fleming

• The Visual Dictionary of Flight by DK Publishing

• Flight – The Complete History by DK Publishing

• Whose Wings? by Jeannette Rowe

Go on an Excursion

Go on a flight excursion! Here are some suggestions in the Canberra region.

• Annual Canberra Festival Balloon Spectacular and look at over 20 hot air balloons take flight on the lawns near Questacon.

• Canberra walk in aviary located at Federation Square. You can feed over 50 varieties of birds.

• Go to the airport and watch the aeroplanes and helicopters take off and land.

Investigate Websites

There are also many websites for children about flight. We suggest you start with.

• • Questacon Watch the Science Time Flight video at

• • Kidzone All about birds kidzone.ws

• • 4-2-Explore Learn more about flight flight.htm

Open 9am – 5pm every day. Closed Christmas Day.

Admission fees apply.

King Edward Terrace, Canberra

t 02 6270 2893

questacon.edu.au

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