Soda-Straw Rocket

If gravity pulls everything on the Earth towards the center of the Earth, how do astronauts get to the International Space Station? How was the Hubble Space Telescope moved from the Earth's surface to an orbit around the Earth? How did any of the Mars exploration robots get from Earth to Mars? The answer, of course, is rockets. Some sort of rocket propulsion has been known since 400 BCE when a Greek propelled a wooden bird along a string using steam. The first true rockets were developed by the Chinese and Mongols using tubes of gunpowder tied to arrows. In these rockets, the fuel was burning chemicals. The arrow's straight shaft, pointed tip and fletching (the feathered "fins") helped the rocket fly to its intended target. In this activity, learners will explore rocket stability and flight by constructing and flying small paper rockets for indoor use. Working individually and in teams, they will conduct an experiment, analyze the data, interpret the results, and then design new experiments based on results.

More Lessons from the Sky is please to spotlight the Soda-Straw Rocket activity, an existing lesson that contributes to the use of satellites and satellite technologies in the classroom. The Soda-Straw Rocket activity was originally designed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has been adapted and published by multiple authors.

Next Generation Science Standards addressed in this lesson:
    5-PS2-1     3-5-ETS1-2     3-5-ETS1-3     MS-PS2-2     MS-ETS1-3     MS-ETS1-4