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Feathers are made of keratin. The shaft is hollow, and the vanes are made of thousands of barbs held together by tiny hooks on the barbules. Birds preen to hook the barbs back together.

Different feathers have different jobs. The primary feathers at the tip of the wing push the bird forward; the secondary feathers nearer the body give most of the lift; tail feathers steer and act as a brake for landing.

Birds flap their wings with strong breast muscles. Without feathers a bird could not make enough lift to fly.

Experiment: Lift and gliders

1. Part A: hold a paper strip just below your bottom lip so that it hangs down. Blow hard over the top of it. What happens?
2. Part B: make three paper gliders from the same paper: one with small wings, one with medium wings and one with large wings. Add one paper clip to the nose of each.
3. Decide what you will keep the same: the paper, the paper clip, the launch height, how hard you throw.
4. Launch each glider three times from the same line and measure how far it flies.
5. Work out the average distance for each glider and draw a bar chart.
6. Which wing size flew furthest? Can you explain why?

Glider	Flight 1 (m)	Flight 2 (m)	Flight 3 (m)	Average (m)
Small wings	Which glider will fly furthest?
Medium wings	Which glider will fly furthest?
Large wings	Which glider will fly furthest?

Questions

1. Label a feather: shaft, vane, barbs.

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2. Explain how a wing makes lift. Use the words air, faster and pressure.

3. In your glider test, what did you change, what did you measure and what did you keep the same?

4. Give two ways a bird's body is made light for flying.

Sources for every fact on this sheet: echoesof.science/school/birds/sources/

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