You might think that skydiving is too dangerous for kids, but what about indoor skydiving?

You don’t use a parachute or fall from great heights, instead you’re in a wind tunnel. But unlike a horizontal tunnel that might test airplane shapes, the indoor skydiving tunnel is vertical. The wind blows up at you, suspending you in the air as though falling from a plane.

Turns out that this is a great tool for capturing kids’ attention with the science of flight.

Scott London, of iFly  explains (via the Chicago Tribune) how the company helps students learn about science and engineering concepts,

“We use our wind tunnels to teach students about drag, or forces exerted on solid objects by a moving object. We can customize the program to suit grades 2 through 4 where we might do concepts for the presentation and a demo with very little mathematics to it. Then we go all the way to 12th grade and advanced.”

And as you can imagine, when they make their “dive” they can feel the principles they’ve learned about.

It’s making me wish that our forthcoming picture book had included indoor skydiving! But we’ve included tons of other action that appeals to kids, ranging from skateboarding and sandboarding to dancing and bicycling. Check it out here. And who knows, maybe indoor skydiving is up next…