Author: Niamh Brady

Our STEM activity was carried out on 28th April 2020

I am currently teaching my class remotely using the Seesaw application and during the last week of April I assigned my class the following STEM activity – Paper Helicopters which focused on the Strand ‘Energy and Forces’, Strand Unit ‘Forces’.

I made a video which I sent to the children detailing the lesson objectives & desired lesson outcomes.

The lesson plan that I used for this particular lesson can be found here.

First of all, I set the scene and talked to the children about the topic of flight. Some things actually fly while others glide or float. Then I asked them some open-ended questions such as:

• What do these do – aeroplanes and birds, gliders and flying foxes, balloons?
• Discuss aeroplanes – how they have to keep moving in order to stay in the air. So how do helicopters stay still in the air?
• What do sycamore seeds do when they fall off the tree? Describe what happens.