Piedmont Elementary Students Launch Weather Balloon

DULUTH, Minn. — Students in Duluth are taking their learning to new heights as they got to launch a weather balloon.

Piedmont Elementary School is participating in the All-School Weather Balloon Project through St. Louis County and Essentia Health. The balloon launched just after 1pm today and is expected to reach an altitude of 100,000 feet above earth. Students learn all about air pressure changes in the stratosphere while getting hands on experience.

“Anytime that you can demonstrate learning versus reading in a book. If you can physically touch it and you can physically, do it where you have a role within it to the success of doing it. I think that helps you learn, and you have an invested interest in that,” said Eyan Kern, Event Organizer.

Event organizers hope this experience gets student interested in STEM careers.

“This was very exciting to do. We are all like stressed out all week to do this because we were always like when are we going to launch and all that,” said Myla Huggins, 5th grade student. “It was super fun to like get to have jobs in it and speaking parts and that stuff.”

The weather balloon can be tracked live. It was predicted to land 3 hours after the launch in Northwest Wisconsin.