Combining science with art

Today, in Apologia Zoology 1, the first part of our reading was about how birds steer while flying and how they alternate between flapping and gliding to conserve energy. To illustrate these concepts, I grabbed a piece of mail that was laying nearby and pretended it was a bird. Suddenly everybody wanted to have my piece of mail so that they could play bird too. I suggested that we wait until the afternoon (we were already running a little behind because I overslept), and I would try to teach them how to make an origami bird to fly instead if I could find some directions. I found some great directions online at http://www.origami-instructions.com/

Step 1: Make an origami square base.

Step 2: Next turn the square base into an origami bird base.

Step 3: Take the bird base and fold it into an origami flapping bird. To make the bird fly better, you need to change the last step by folding the wings straight down instead. The directions show the wings being folded down and to the back. I tried this and the wings didn't flap very well. When I looked at the demonstation video that showed how to flap the wings, I noticed that the wings were folded straight down. This works much better.

Here's a look at our bird creations this afternoon.