Aircraft of the future

This is one of a set of resources produced in conjunction with the engineering company Arconic. The resources are designed to support teaching of key engineering concepts at both key stage 3 and key stage 4, including the new GCSE in Engineering. This resource focusses on designing a sustainably powered aircraft for the future.

Petrochemicals are likely to become more scarce in the future as the world’s oil resources are used up. Engineers and designers will need to consider alternative ways of powering aircraft.

In this activity, learners will design a sustainably powered aircraft of the future. They will learn about the alternatives to using petrochemicals to power aircraft. It will build understanding of sustainability issues in engineering and how these are applied when designing a product.

This could be used as a one-off main lesson activity, as part of a wider unit of work focussing on sources of energy and sustainability issues in engineering or as part of a scheme on aircraft design using all of the resources developed in association with Arconic.

The activity sheet includes teacher notes, guidance, useful web links, and links (where appropriate) to the national curriculum in each of the four devolved UK nations; England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.