Connections by Air
Connections by Air
Explore the ways air travel is important in your life, even if you don't fly.
You might be surprised by how everyday things in your life are affected by the existence of airplanes!
On Demand Activities
Jump to Activity: Story Time Suggestions Craft Activity Eye Spy Activities Parachute Airdrop Design Challenge Innovator Spotlight
Before air travel, people traveled by foot, horse, boat, train and car to get from one place to another. This took a long time and limited how far people could go.
When air travel began in the 1900s, it was very expensive, dangerous and also exclusive to wealthy people. Now, air travel is safer, more comfortable and accessible to more people.
Have you ever travelled by airplane to visit family, friends or to explore a new place?
Story Time Suggestions
Check these books out at your school or library to explore stories about families traveling by air!
Craft Activity: Make a Luggage Tag
When you’re going on a trip on an airplane, you want to make sure you don’t lose your belongings at a busy airport or on an airplane with a lot of other travelers.
Luggage tags help us mark our luggage and have important information available quickly in case it does get lost!
Here are some examples of luggage and baggage tags from our museum collections.
Now it’s your turn to make your own luggage tag!
Materials Needed:
- Paper, cardboard or 3x5 index card
- Pencil
- Markers or crayons
- Ruler or straight edge
- Scissors
- Shipping tape
Yarn or string
Step 1: If using paper or cardboard, cut it to about 2 inches x 4 inches. This will give you the general shape of your luggage tag. If you’re using a 3x5 index card, cut it in half.
You can also choose to make a larger luggage tag, if you'd like!
Step 2: Place a dot in the corner of your tag. This is where you’ll punch a hole later for your luggage tag attachment.
Step 3: Make three lines for the tag information. Fill in your name on the first line, home address on the second line and phone number or email address on the third line.
Step 4: Now it’s time to decorate your luggage tag! Use whatever art materials you want to use to personalize your luggage tag.
Step 5: Have a grown up punch a hole with scissors or a pencil where you placed a dot earlier.
Step 6: To make the luggage tag last longer, cover your tag with shipping tape to make the paper or cardboard stronger and water resistant. Punch a hole through the tape where you made the hole earlier.
Step 7: Create your luggage tag attachment by measuring out a piece of yarn or string to about 12 inches.
Step 8: Place one end of the string through the hole in your tag, pull it through and then tie the two ends together, creating a loop.
Step 9: Now you’re ready to attach your luggage tag to your suitcase! Push the tag through the loop of string and then pull to tighten the string around your handle or zipper pull.
Luggage tags get beat up and fall off during travel - that’s normal! Follow the steps above again to make more luggage tags!
The picture shows a cargo airplane being loaded through a door in its nose cone.
Instead of carrying passengers, cargo aircraft are used to deliver goods and materials quickly. Cargo aircraft are used for commercial or military purposes, or to help people in need.
Activity: Eye-Spy in your Neighborhood and in your Home
Use the Eye Spy sheets below to discover how air travel affects things in your home and neighborhood!
Click the image below to view the sheet.
There is a rich history of airplanes being used to deliver food, medicines, clothing and other necessary items to people in need to places that are hard to reach. Below are two examples.
During the Berlin Airlift in 1948 - 1949, American and British forces flew around-the-clock for 18 months, bringing coal, food, medicine, and all of the other necessities of life to the two million inhabitants of war-ravaged West Berlin.
2.3 million tons of supplies were delivered - all by airplane!
U.S. Air Force Douglas C-47 airplanes unloading cargo at Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, Germany.
After hurricanes and other natural disasters, relief and aid in the form of food, medicine and other supplies are brought to those in need via airplane.
Sometimes, supplies are dropped from the sky because there are no safe places to land! These are called air drops.
"UK aid cargo for hurricane-hit Haiti" by DFID - UK Department for International Development is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Design Challenge
Test out different homemade parachutes to figure out which one could be used to make a successful air drop.
Your goal is to create a parachute that allows supplies to land slowly and softly onto the ground so the cargo is not damaged and the people on the ground don't get hurt.
Materials Needed:
- Parachute material. Some examples are:
- plastic trash bags
- grocery bags
- coffee filters
- printer paper
- paper napkin or paper towel
- String or sewing thread or dental floss
- What you'll be delivering for the airdrop - it can be a pen or a small toy
- Tape
- Scissors
- Note paper
- Pencil
- Stopwatch
Step 1: Design
- Why are parachutes dropped from airplanes carrying precious supplies? A parachute catches air and creates drag, which slows down the descent of the supplies from the airplane to the ground. This allows the supplies to land softly.
- Take a look at these examples of parachutes used during airdrops. What do you notice about them? What shape is the parachute?
-
Servicemembers retrieve cargo dropped from a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III near Forward Operating Base Todd, Baghdis Province, Afghanistan, Jan. 6, 2011. ("110106-F-8733W-051" by ResoluteSupportMedia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)
- For testing out your parachute design, choose what you want your test "payload" to be. The payload during airdrops is the box full of food or medical supplies or water that is delivered. What do you want to use to represent this? You can use a pencil or a small plastic toy - anything with a little bit of weight to it.
Based on what you see in the pictures, and your choice of payload, how do you want to design your parachute? Sketch out your design or make a list of what you want your parachute to look like.
Step 2: Build
- Use the diagram of the parachute as a guide for building your parachute.
- Tip: Don't worry if you don't get it the way you envision it on your first try. Engineers constantly try and try again when designing things.
- First, cut out your canopy from your material of choice.
- Next, cut four pieces of string and use tape to attach it to four parts of your canopy. Make sure to spread out where you are placing your string.
- Finally, bring the other ends of the four pieces of string together and tape them to the payload.
Step 3: Test
- Create your testing area by finding a high place where you can drop your parachute safely, or by creating height by using a step stool. Make sure you have a grown up with you if you are using a step stool.
- Drop your parachute and use a stopwatch to track how long for the parachute to hit the ground.
- Hint: A successful airdrop will take time to land on the ground, so you want your parachute to catch more air and move slowly to the ground.
- Make observations: What happened when you dropped your parachute? Did your parachute move slow enough or did it land too fast?
Step 4: Redesign
- Based on what happened during your first parachute drop, what changes would you want to make to your design?
- Try out a redesign of your parachute. What will happen if you make your parachute bigger? Do you want to try a different shape? Do the strings need to be shorter?
- Jerrie Cobb, who was born in 1931, became a pilot when she was 16.
- She was a skilled pilot who was part of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLAT). In 1960, she was the first woman to pass all three phases of testing that astronauts undergo to prepare them for space.
- After NASA decided to restrict the astronaut training to only men, Jerrie bought a used Aero Commander 500B, Juliet, and began making trips to the Amazon Basin as a solo pilot delivering food, medicine, and other aid to the indigenous people.
- She continued humanitarian aid work for over 50 years.
- Cobb received many awards including the 1972 Harmon International Trophy as the woman pilot of the year and the Amelia Earhart Gold Medal of Achievement. She passed away in 2019.
For Grownups - Learn more about this remarkable aviator.
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