There are many ways to fold a piece of paper into a paper airplane. Most people have a build that they think flies the best or the furthest. Let’s find out which plane build is most consistent by using the standard deviation. Using three different paper airplanes, the students will compute the standard deviation to find which paper airplane build is the most consistent.
My worksheet can be found here. My PowerPoint presentation can be found here.
Upon reflection of this activity, it may be best to have the students perform their flights one at a time in the hallway, to avoid any altercations about planes that didn't go quite as far as expected. Another alternative may even be to have a select few students fly them in from of the class, and everyone will use the same planes to calculate the standard deviation.