STRINGtime!

It's STRINGtime. It's time to fly a kite. If you visit The Franklin Institute Science Museum during Spring Break, you'll be greeted by dozens of kites flying high overhead. There's no wind in the museum, though, so the kites are actually held by strings. But that makes us wonder about kites. How do kites fly? What's the science?
To investigate, we went first to visit the kitemaker who is currently visiting the museum. There we learned about the history of kites. For nearly three thousand years, Chinese artisans have been making kites.
That made us want to try flying our own kites, so we headed to the roof where we hoped to catch a breeze. From the rooftop, on a breezy day, we set our kite sailing.
But we still wondered about the science. We visited the museum exhibit on aviation where we learned about the Bernoulli Principle. It turns out that the same principle applies to kites. Basically, air moving quickly across the surface of the kite causes the air pressure on the kite to reduce, making it light enough to float on the moving air current. If the air current stops moving, the air regains its pressure and the kite falls heavily to the ground. That's quite amazing!
Quicktime Movie (4200k)	Quicktime Movie (3000k)
Since the Quicktime Movies may take too long to download, the narration of our investigation is also available. RealAudio Soundfile (95k)
We used this excellent list of kite-related websites to research the topic before we began the investigation. Jason's Web Kite Site Anthony's Kite Workshop Kites and Kite Flying The Virtual Kite Zoo Kite Terminology Kite Terminology Kite Flying Basics Kite Names, Pictures, and Descriptions Kite Plans on the Internet More Kite Plans Fly Me To The Moon - Kite altitude records. Famous Historic Kite Flights Science By Kite Kites and Meteorology Kites, Kids, and Education Kite History 20 Kids, 20 Kites, 20 Minutes KidKiteWeb Kites in the Classroom Let's Go Fly a Kite Chinese Kites Including Chinese Kite History Kite Info on the Web Bernoulli's Principle Airplane

Check the results of Amy's lichen investigation.
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