Teacher Pack
Lift, Thrust, Drag, and Gravity
Grades 4-6 · Grades 7-9 · 50 minutes
Learning Objectives
- Students will be able to name the four forces acting on a drone in flight.
- Students will be able to describe how lift and gravity balance in a hover.
- Students will be able to predict how thrust and drag interact during forward flight.
- Students will be able to diagram the four forces with arrows of proportional size.
Aligned Standards
NGSSMS-PS2-1· Newton's third law (forces in pairs)NGSSMS-PS2-2· Balanced & unbalanced forcesCCSS-MathMP.4· Model with mathematicsISTE1.5· Computational Thinker
Lesson Plan Summary
- Warm-up
- Drop a piece of paper flat, then crumpled. Discuss which fell faster and why — introduce drag and gravity.
- Direct instruction
- Lift comes from propeller airflow, thrust is directional force, drag resists motion, and gravity acts downward. Stable flight means balancing these forces. Draw the four-arrow diagram on the board, then use the Forces Flight Lab to identify forces.
- Guided activity
- Play the in-app Forces game; students press the correct face button to identify each force. In-app activity: Forces Flight Lab. Related mission: direction.
- Assessment
- Student names all four forces with examples. Complete the 5-question in-app quiz; reteach any question missed by more than 30% of students.
Educator-only resources
Full lesson plans, worksheets, rubrics, and answer keys are included with DroneReady Educator plans.