As dawn rose on December 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two brothers—Orville and Wilbur Wright—were disappointed in the weather. Bitter cold winds whipped up the sands at a stinging 27 miles per hour, and the temperature had plummeted far past “pleasantly crisp” into sub-freezing.
The Wright brothers and their determination to achieve the first powered controlled flight have long piqued the curious minds of elementary-aged learners and aspiring adventurers. With the help of Gale In Context: Elementary, this tale of innovation also offers educators an opportunity to center a cross-curricular unit combining history, literacy skills, mathematics, and science around a subject sure to spark children’s natural curiosity.
We created the Gale In Context: Elementary interface with young learners in mind, presenting students with a strategy for learning research and media literacy skills at a comfortable pace. As we explore the journey to human flight, we’ll show you some of our platform’s best learning materials available on the Wilbur and Orville Wright topic page to help you inspire a new generation of explorers, inventors, scientists, and pioneers.
Aviation Inspiration: The Early Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright
Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright’s parents encouraged them to indulge in their natural drive for discovery. The brothers considered their parents’ views on learning a “special advantage,” as Orville shared in a 1939 Harper’s Magazine interview:
“We were lucky enough to grow up in a home environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests. We were taught to cultivate the encyclopedia habit, to look up facts about whatever aroused our curiosity. In a different kind of environment, I imagine our curiosity might have been nipped long before it could have borne fruit.”
The boys set about their halcyon days tinkering with homemade kites and observing the intricate mechanisms of their toys. Of those, a “planophore,” or rubber band–powered helicopter, gifted by their father stands out as the spark for their fascination with flight.
Following their mother’s death from tuberculosis in 1889, the boys joined forces to open a print shop and quickly gained a reputation for their high-quality printing presses, which they designed and built by hand.
A few years later, in 1892, they expanded their industry portfolio with a bicycle shop, where they soon began building bikes under the Van Cleve and St. Clair brand names. This work eventually led to the Wrights inventing a self-oiling wheel hub and earning enough profits to conduct aeronautics experiments beginning in 1899.
Discussion Idea: Ask students how Wilbur and Orville’s curiosity as children helped them become successful inventors. Encourage students to also reflect on how their curiosities might lead to discoveries or inventions in the future.
Back to the Drawing Board
The first obstacle toward the Wright brothers’ goals of powered controlled flight was running out of books on aeronautics at the Dayton Public Library. Rather than give up, they decided to expand their horizons by requesting texts from the Smithsonian.
When Herr Otto Lilienthal, a German engineer, died while experimenting with his flying machine in 1896, the brothers weren’t deterred by fear of their possible fate. Instead, they ordered a copy of his book so they could build on his knowledge to inform their own. Then, when that book arrived written in German, the Wrights learned the language because Lilienthal’s insights were too invaluable to ignore.
The brothers’ foray into turning their theories and designs into action was no less trying.
Of their first attempts at flight on Kitty Hawk’s beaches, Orville said, “We put it [their first glider] together as accurately as a watchmaker assembles and adjusts his finest timepiece. To our great disappointment, however, the glider was not the success we had expected. It didn’t behave as the figures on which it was constructed vouched that it should.”
After realizing they couldn’t rely on Lilienthal’s specs and lacked the funds to build multiple full-sized gliders to test alternative designs, the men created models. They tested each in a homemade wind tunnel and then used that data to refine their designs more precisely.
Armed with the experience of countless model flights, the Wright brothers eventually built another full-sized glider and returned to the dunes of Kitty Hawk in 1901. Again, the glider fell short of their expectations, as it was unwieldy to handle and sent them spinning back down into the sand.
Despite the continued setbacks, they made more than 700 attempts that year.
Their 1902 glider, with improved control and stability, was a breakthrough. They flew it more than 1,400 times, perfecting their three-axis control system, which would become the foundation of modern flight.
Activity Idea: Students can use the Gale In Context: Elementary airplanes topic page and search function to research other famous aviators such as Harriet Quimby, Amelia Earhart, and Charles A. Lindbergh. Ask them to analyze how these aviation achievements built on the work of previous generations of innovators and inventors.
A Powered Plan Comes Together
After figuring out how to achieve control in flight, it was time to address the power component.
To that end, the Wright brothers worked with Charles E. Taylor, who operated the Wrights’ bicycle shop in their absence, to design and build an engine. Relying on the brothers’ rough sketches, it took Taylor just six weeks to create a water-cooled, four-cylinder aircraft engine out of aluminum copper that weighed 152 pounds and could deliver 12 horsepower.
As their plan came together and the men grew more confident, they filed a patent for their “Flying-Machine,” on March 23, 1903.
Activity Idea: You can rely on Gale In Context: Elementary to support your cross-curricular instruction with resources such as an article from the December 2002 issue of Appleseeds titled “The Wright Brothers Take Off.” The article is paired with a math activity that asks students to use the information they learn to solve word problems. Target a handful of skills across subjects, including critical thinking, reading comprehension, mathematical problem-solving, and information synthesis.
The First Flight
The morning of December 17, 1903, was full of anticipation as the brothers performed final checks on the Wright Flyer, a fragile machine crafted from wood and muslin with a 40-foot wingspan.
After tossing a coin that landed in Orville’s favor, the younger brother lay prone on the lower wing, hands gripping the controls. Wilbur stood alongside the Flyer, ready to steady the wing as the machine picked up speed.
Orville released the tether holding the plane to the ground, taxied down a wooden track against 27-mile-per-hour winds, and, after traveling 45 feet along the ground, lifted into the sky.
For 12 exhilarating seconds, the Wright Flyer stayed airborne, covering a distance of 120 feet before gently gliding back to the earth. It was a brief flight, but it was enough for Wilbur to write, “There is now no question of final success” in a letter to his sister, Katharine.
That day, they completed four flights, each a little longer than the last. The day’s final flight was the last time this original Flyer left the ground. After a flight piloted by Wilbur lasted 59 seconds and covered 852 feet, a gust of wind sent their machine rolling and skidding across the sand, obliterating it.
In reflecting on the day, John T. Daniels, a resident of Kitty Hawk who served as a photographer during the Wrights’ first flight, said, “We couldn’t help thinking they were just a pair of poor nuts. We laughed about ’em among ourselves for a while, but we soon quit laughing and just felt sorry for ’em. . . . Such nice boys wasting their time playing with kites and watching the gulls fly.”
How proud the Wrights must have been to prove them wrong.
The Wright Tools for Teaching
If there’s one universal theme we can distill from the Wright brothers’ story, it’s perseverance. No matter what hurdles they encountered or the doubts expressed about their likelihood of success, Wilbur and Orville refused to give up their dream of conquering the skies. Their journey from curious boys to pioneers of aviation is a powerful reminder that genius is often cultivated through persistence.
Sign up for a free trial of Gale In Context: Elementary to explore our collection of curated resources, primary documents, and engaging activities that invite students to explore historical achievements and—perhaps more importantly—the failures that shaped them. Through these stories, they also learn to see the value in their efforts, no matter how small, and to draw inspiration from the Wright brothers’ relentless pursuit of flight.