Learning by Seeing: Fun Visualization Tools That Educate

One recent morning, I sat in the window seat on a flight home from foggy Atlanta, Georgia, to Maine. As we gained speed heading down the runway, I watched the wing and noted the fully extended flaps. As soon as we lifted off and entered the fog layer some 20 feet up, an intense cloud rolled off the upper surface of the wing. When I saw this phenomenon in action, I immediately thought, "A-ha! Bernoulli's principle!"

The shape of an airfoil (especially when the flaps are extended to exaggerate the airfoil) is such that the air moving across its upper surface has to go a greater distance, and, therefore, faster. This creates a reduction in the air pressure on the upper surface, and allows the relatively greater pressure below the wing to lift the plane into the air.

The roiling cloud I witnessed was the moisture being squeezed out of the damp, foggy air moving across the top of the airfoil and becoming compressed like a sponge, thus leaving less room for water molecules. It was fascinating to see it happen, and even better that I could recall my understanding of Bernoulli's principle -- something I had not thought about in years.

Like the real-world example above, following are a few of my favorite Web-based resources to help teachers explain -- and get their students to understand -- complex topics in new ways: