Piedmont Students Take Learning to New Heights Launching Weather Balloon to Space
The students attached science experiments to the balloon, to see how they will react in the stratosphere.
DULUTH, Minn.- Piedmont Elementary School science students are once again taking their learning up, up, and away launching a weather balloon into space today.
The balloon is equipped with a high-altitude computer so the students can study the altitude, temperature, and barometric pressure here on earth.
But this year, the 5th grade students wanted to do more than just go to space.
So they attached science experiments to the balloon, to see how they will react in the stratosphere.
“Like one, we’re doing a model volcano and we have a balloon in a bottle,” said 5th grader Benjamin Laboone Rego. “We’re also sending up a squishy, like a stress thing and a crumpled up bottle, a pop bottle cause we put it in a vacuum chamber to see what it does and we’re going to t see what it does in space when it’s cold.”
Meanwhile, teachers, say analyzing the science using graphs and math allows them to work on a variety of skills in the classroom — and in an unforgettable way for everyone involved.
“This is something that they remember forever and it takes a concrete-or it takes an abstract concept like air pressure and makes it concrete,” 5th grade teacher Loni Schweiger said. “Something they can see and something they can actually get an experience with.”
“They’ve been waiting for this and so have I, it’s really fun. And the launch is just such a nice culminating activity,” she said.
The plan is to have the weather balloon pop and come back down with a parachute after about an hour in space.
A GPS located inside the balloon will help the students find it and gather their results.
