Flight from Austin to Incheon

Target Audience:  11^{th grade} physics

 

Project Description:

 

Flight from Austin to Incheon will provide students with questions that are dealt in real life and no known answer question that could be estimated with already available information in the World Wide Web. As students will be guided through complicated assets of this question, the students will be introduced to the community via guest speakers and a field trip. Problem solving will be strengthened, by having students make decisions about the project due to constraints imposed by the project. Students will have an increased sense of responsibility from being part of a group. Finally students will see physics as something that is part of their everyday lives, rather than a school based experience only.

 

Driving Question: What is most profitable way for A380 fly to Incheon from Austin?

 

Project Goals:

 

The project will incorporate real world activities into the regular physics and chemical curriculums so that students are able to connect physics and chemical concepts to the real world they see around them.  Students will develop technology skills by using various computer programs.  Students will interact with computer leaders such as pilots, who will show them what flight in real life with current model of air craft Boeing 777 in areas such as time it takes to take-off and land and issues such as how much extra fuel an airplane usually carry that fly internationally. Students will integrate multiple disciplines, such as math, science and economic.

 

Project Objectives:

Students will be able to:

• Recognize the relationship between different forces working together on an aircraft
• Justify conclusions with reasoning and proof.
• Recognize the relationship between the number of passengers and gasoline needed.
• Deduce how many stops (if needed at all) for flight from Austin to Incheon.
• Determine the amount of gasoline needed.
• Find the speed of the A 380 and current air craft used in the flight from Austin to Incheon.
• Find faster flight between A 380 with 3 classes less passengers or just 1 class with more passengers.
• Determine whether gasoline is suitable fuel for A 380.

 

Rationale:

             As disciplines, Physics and Chemistry are very readily encountered in every day life. However, most often, they are not taught in school in relation to real life detaching the possible interests of students who otherwise would be curious to learn. In attempt to provide that link between real life and learning experience from school, this project, Flight from Austin to Incheon is prepared for students to be actively engaged in learning Physics and Chemistry while using Business as means of overall connection.

 

Background:

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, four-engined airliner manufactured by EADS (Airbus S.A.S.). It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. It first flew on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse, France.[1] After lengthy delays, commercial flights are scheduled to begin in late 2007. During much of its development phase, the aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX. The nickname Superjumbo has become associated with the A380.

The A380's upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage. This allows for a cabin with 50% more floor space than the next largest airliner, the Boeing 747-400, and provides seating for 555 people in standard three-class configuration or up to 853 people in full economy class configuration.[2] Two models of the A380 are available for sale. The A380-800, the passenger model, is the largest passenger airliner in the world,[3] superseding the Boeing 747. The A380-800F, the freighter model, is designed as one of the largest freight aircraft, with a listed payload capacity exceeded only by the Antonov An-225.[4] The A380-800 has a maximum range of 15,000 km (8,000 nmi, sufficient to fly from Chicago to Sydney nonstop), and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h or 560 mph at cruise altitude).[3]

(More detailed information is available at Wikipedia – the link provided in the Resources)

 

Standards addressed:

TEKS:

112.42. Integrated Physics and Chemistry - (c) Knowledge and skills

(2) Scientific processes. The student uses scientific methods during field and laboratory investigations. The student is expected to:

             (C) Organize, analyze, evaluate, make inferences, and predict trends from data

             (Investigate the velocity and acceleration in relation to Forces acting on Airplane)

(3) Scientific processes. The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to:

(C) Evaluate the impact of research on scientific thought, society, and the environment (Decision on how many stops in relation to where most people will get aboard)

(6) Science concepts. The student knows the impact of energy transformations in everyday life. The student is expected to:

(D) Investigate and compare economic and environmental impacts of using various energy sources such as rechargeable or disposable batteries and solar cells

(The choice of fuel for A 380 economical and weight efficient reasons)

 

Evaluation and Assessment Plan:

Each student will have a project journal in which they keep most of their assignments.  This will be kept in the room and checked at the end of each week for and assignment check.  It will be turned in for a final grade at the end of the project.  This will account for 25% of the project grade.

Interest Checklist: Due on Day 1.  At the beginning of the project "Flight from Austin to Incheon" I will pass out a list with the different components we will be working on and the projects that each group will be involved in. After each element I will have a checklist asking the students about their interest, knowledge, and skill pertaining to each section. This will give the students an overview of the project and help them to prepare for the sections that they may have no knowledge or interest in and also make them excited about the sections that they do.
This exercise will also help me to decide when I might want to spend more time on a section then on others, if there is a high interest in one area I might want to spend more time and make the section more challenging. However if there is also low interest and knowledge in another, I might want to search for an activity to inspire more interest in this area while hopefully creating more knowledge. It might also be interesting to hand out the same checklist at the end of the project as an assessment of how answers have changed. 

Project Prospectus: Due on Day 6.  After each group is formed, they will be given a several working days to decide which portion of the project they would like to work on and then work as a group to come up with a project prospectus, which will be an overview of their project and how they will accomplish their goals.
Each group will be responsible for turning in one copy.  Each member of the group must be highlighted in which part of the project they will over see. This will hold different group members accountable for overseeing the completion of each section.

The Minute Paper: Due at the end of each Monday. All of the students are going to be working in different groups, each with their own set tasks. I think that having the students quickly reflect on how they have been working toward their goals is a good way to assess what they are getting from their project. It will highlight where there may be problems or which teams may need more responsibility or direction.

Categorizing Grid: Due at the end of week three and six.  Students will be given a list of the different component of their project and then a list of the different Physical/Chemical skills that will be used to complete them. They will then use a categorizing grid to place each component with a corresponding physics concept that they used while working on it. This exercise will help me to assess whether or not the students understand when to use concepts learned in the Benchmark lessons in their project. It will also remind the students of all the different concepts they have been utilizing while working on their houses.  This will be an on going grid that they keep in their project journal.  There will be one grid check in the middle of the project and one at the end when they turn their journal in with their project.  This will account for 10% of the final project grade.

One-page summaries: Due at the end of the speaker days.  For my project ‘Flight from Austin to Incheon,’ I plan to have local professionals come into the classroom and speak to the students about the areas of the project that they work on in their jobs. At the end of the discussions, I will have the students write a one page summary of Who the speaker is, What they do, For Who or What do they do this to, When, Where, How, and Why and then also how this pertains to the project. It will be very short but it will hopefully keep them paying attention and asking questions while our guests are visiting.

What is the principal: At the beginning of each work day, we will take 5 minutes of quiet time while students write in their project journal. They will date their page and at the top write, what is the principal? They will then briefly describe their problem for the day and how they are going to go about solving it. What is their working strategy for the day? It can pertain to the project as a whole, their group dynamic or a physics concept that they are unsure of. They can then evaluate at the end of the class day how well they met this goal when they are writing their process analysis.

Evaluation Sheet: Due at the end of the second day.  Near the beginning of the project I will pass out a list of the specific duties of each group and the different tasks that each group must complete. Each student must fill out and evaluation sheet on themselves that will relate their confidence level for each of the items. This will help me to assess if the students have anxiety or low confidence for any area of the project. As a class we can help each other through these areas by working slowly and more diligently to make sure that every student has confidence in the understanding of the project. This will also help students to voice to themselves any concerns that they may be having in their work.

Work Evaluation: Two minutes at the end of each workday. While working on "Flight from Austin to Incheon", each student will keep a log in which they write what they worked on that day. They will describe how they are going about solving their problems and assignments that are associated with the part of project they chose.
They will be asked to evaluate their work at the end of each week and write one thing that they think they could have done differently to make their project run more smoothly. At the end of the project they will be asked to read through their writings and name one thing they wish they would have changed about their approach to problem solving and one thing that they think they did well as and individual worker and one thing that their group did well together.  Due before the presentations (Team analysis)
This process will help me to see how they are growing in their recognition of their own skills and accomplishments, and for them to get practice at analyzing their own productivity.

Final Evaluations: Students will be evaluated using the project Rubric. 70% of the grade will be based on completion of the project and 30% of the grade will be determined by the presentation of the project.

 

Students will be able to choose from three final project (assessment) options.  All options include these:

 

1)     A summary including all forces working on the aircraft and the calculated speed of aircraft during typical summer season with the flight pattern one chose to fly.

2)     A written report supporting the decisions made regarding the choices in the fuel and how much of it will be carried in the plane within the limit that the plane could take off with the weight of fuel and its passenger.

3)     Business proposal in powerpoint presentation form with the most profitable way to commercialize A 380 including how many classes, where it will make stops, whether its nonstop, 1-, 2- stop flight, etc.