Operation Candy Bomber · 4th grade
Sixteen labs. One runway at the end of it.
A full-year, standards-aligned aviation STEM curriculum for 4th grade classrooms — built with Loose in the Lab, delivered with kits and training, and finished on a working airfield.
16
hands-on science labs
25
classrooms in year one
650–750
students served
4×
the national average of experiments
The program
History as the hook. Physics as the payoff.
Operation Candy Bomber uses the Berlin Airlift and Halvorsen’s candy drops as the narrative frame for a real physics curriculum — motion and speed, energy transfer, collisions and force, aerodynamics and engineering design.
The average elementary student does four experiments a year. Students in this program do sixteen, aligned to Utah SEEd and NGSS standards, and end the year competing in five engineering challenges.
What's included
Everything a teacher needs, in the room
Classroom kits
Every material for all 16 labs, assembled and delivered. No sourcing, no shopping list.
Student lab books
A printed book per student with procedures, data pages and assessments built in.
Teacher training
A hands-on professional development workshop, plus year-round support by email, phone and Zoom.
Instructional videos
One video per activity, so prep is watching a demo instead of decoding a manual.
What's included
Sixteen experiments
- 4Balloon pressure demonstrations
- 4Bottle rocket engineering
- 4Ping pong propulsion
- 4Solar hot air balloons
- 4Slinky sound wave investigations
- 4Paper airplane aerodynamic design
Covering Newton’s Laws, energy transfer, air pressure, friction, sound waves, electricity and aerodynamics.
The competitions
Five engineering challenges
- 4Egg Drop collision protection
- 4Pop Bottle Rockets
- 4Two Loops LaTrek
- 4Xzylo Toss
- 4Simple electric motor design
Students test, analyze and refine — then classroom winners are recognized at the celebration day.