ODCS Weather Balloon launch

The fifth and sixth-graders at Open Door Christian School (ODCS) released a high-altitude weather balloon Friday, May 14, at the Graham Municipal Airport.

Although the balloon did not launch properly on the first attempt, the students did not give up. They put their critical thinking skills to work, added more helium, and relaunched successfully. Claire Meschkat, the STEM teacher who oversees the weather balloon launch project, said they expect to reach an altitude of 100,000 feet before parachuting to the ground in North Texas. Meschkat said STEM projects like the weather balloon launch are an essential part of the learning process and preparing students for jobs in the future.

“I really wanted our students to get a big picture of all that they’re learning in school, how it can be applied to the real world, and get experience in things that they could actually do when they want to have a career in science or engineering,” Meschkat said. “They say that up to 60 percent of the jobs in the future haven’t even been invented yet. So how do we prepare students to fill those jobs? We must teach them to be able to problem-solve and think like real scientists and real engineers,” Meschkat said.

The balloon that the students launched was identical to the actual balloons used by meteorologists at weather service stations to ascertain weather conditions.

“These weather balloons are sent up every day by the National Weather Service. They send up 900 balloons around the world twice a day, every day. And that is how we get our weather. So, our students are actually able to do something that is super useful that everybody needs,” Meschkat said.

For teachers who may be interested in completing a project with their students, kits are available online.

“We bought a kit [online], and then we modified the payload (the carrying capacity) to fit what we want to do. So, we are sending up a raw chicken egg because their student body voted that they want to figure out what happens in the near-space environment to a raw chicken egg. People are voting on whether they think it will freeze or explode. We have a GoPro camera that will be watching it the entire journey and see what happens,” Meschkat explained.

Meschkat was pleased with the turnout and support from the parents and ODCS. She said, “We are blessed as a school to have opportunities like this for our students. This project is done often in high schools, but we are using fifth and sixth-graders. So, it is a really unique opportunity. And I’m so grateful that our school supports the STEM program that we get to do awesome stuff like this.”

You may follow the balloon’s journey and view the flight data by clicking this link:http://bit.ly/2021weatherballoon