Introduction

I chose to do airplanes as my Independent Study topic because I wanted to study birds and Amelia Earhart. Birds seemed interesting, and I had always been curious about Amelia Earhart. Both topics were too narrow, so I combined them into the idea of planes. I knew little about planes before I started, except that they were aerodynamic. Aerodynamic things make it easier to slice through wind. Most aerodynamic things are pointed, though some are not. For example, if you were facing the direction that the wind was coming from you would not be aerodynamic, because the wind has more of you to push against, making it seem stronger. However, if you are turned sideways towards the wind, it is easier to walk through. This is because the wind has less of you to push against, which will make it seem weaker.