As middle school mathematics becomes more abstract, it is imperative for teachers to introduce concepts in ways that are interesting and meaningful to students. Since her students struggled at times to stay engaged in mathematics and seemed to have difficulty developing conceptual understanding, the author looked for ways to create learning contexts that would be noteworthy and relevant. Working with data seemed to lend itself readily to contexts that were appealing to students. To give her students additional experience with measures of central tendency and data collection, she developed an activity that involved making and flying paper airplanes. This lesson, which ultimately focused on measures of central tendency, also addressed measurement, scatter plots, and the four main forces of flight. (Contains 5 figures.)