Students have balloon for launch
Eighth-grader Jessie Pittman stands at the back of the line, waiting for students at UAHuntsville to launch a satellite balloon into the sky.
It’s not everyday where students have the chance to leave the classroom and actually apply a lesson plan to real life.
The University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Space Hardware Club helped students in Amy Lyons’ eighth-grade science class at Liberty Middle School launched a balloon satellite into the sky. Four projects, or payloads, were attached to the balloon to test the effects of each project at a high altitude, pressure, temperature and radiation. The balloon ascended anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 feet in the air, with 2 percent atmospheric pressure and a temperature of -7 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We put a camera in the box and pens and we’re going to see if it comes back down and if it still works,” said Jessie Pitman, a student at Liberty. “We also had a light bulb in ours to see if it still works when it comes back down. It’s fun to have the people come up and help us put it together. It was a good experience.”
The first payload tested the power of solar panels vs. altitudes, record temperature vs. altitude data and record pressure vs. altitude data. The second payload tested paint, pens, markers and light bulbs to see if they would work after ascending to a high altitude. The third project’s goal was to discover what happens to balloons filled with different gases, and the condition of multiple food items, such as bread, taco shells and bananas.
Outreach Project 4 was to discover what happens to apple slices, a calculator, an un-popped bag of popcorn and an unopened can of soda.
UAHuntsville Space Hardware Club President Eric Becnel instructs LMS students on how balloon launch procedure.
“They’re looking to see if this is going to promote students’ interest in science,” Lyons said. “They did a survey of how interested students are in science and at the end of this, they will see if it has raised their interest level.”
Eric Becnel, president of the space club, said it is important to apply science lessons learned in the classroom because it is a way to further build student interests in science.
“For us, this event was a way to engage students at a young enough level that they decide they want to be engineers or scientists or decide if they didn’t want to be,” Becnel said. “We want them to see they’re perfectly capable to be involved in these types activities.”
The balloon is expected to pop over Gadsden and land about 30 miles away.
