Town K/4 Space Pod Flight
Flight Details from April 6th 2013:
+ Balloons lifted off from the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada - April 6th, at 8:20 am.
+ 5 flight vehicles carried 2000 PongSats and 9 HD cameras.
+ Peak altitude: 90,000 - 100,000+ ft
+ Average climb rate: 1,100 ft/min
+ Flight duration: 2 hours 5 minutes
+ Wind gusts 20-46mph on ground, near vacuum pressure, extreme cold, cosmic rays, microgravity on descent, solar flare disrupted communication.
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So much preparation went into planning and executing out Pong Sat collaboration with JP Aerospace. There was a segment on the news about their initiative to send student science experiments to space. After running the pitch with our Curriculum Director, and coordinating with teachers, the plan is now in motion.
I don't get a lot of time to teach science to lower school students. There are occasional lessons that I guest-teach with the 2nd grade. There are a few time when I visit all the lower school; most prominently to promote and parade our newly hatched chickens. Some collaborations happen between my upper school students with lower school students, with similar units (soil analysis in 7th grade, and worm bins - composting in 3rd grade.) Now this is my full unit, with an anticipatory set, designing an experiment, building an experiment, and analyzing results.
The 4th grade kindergartens buddies program was the best way to reach as many students in the lower school as possible, while using existing activity time, and reaching a range of learners. (There will a few ping pong balls reserved for teachers, faculty, and staff.)
4th grade students are paired with a kindergarten buddy from the start of the school year. It is an program to build community among our newest students. With their buddies, they designed an experiment, miniature enough fit inside a ping pong ball. The ping pong balls are reassembled, decorated, and labelled. Finally they are sent to JP Aerospace.
While at JP Aerospace, the ping pong balls are organized and gathered with the other hundreds that are reserved for the launch. They are loaded into a basket below a giant weather balloon, and it is sent soaring into the atmosphere above the Nevada desert.
Once reaching maximum altitude, the balloon is no longer able to withstand the conditions of the atmosphere, so it pops, and the cargo is sent crashing down to Earth - often breaking the sound barrier.
Cameras, GPS trackers, and human trackers on the retrieval team set out through the desert to collect the precious ping pong experiments. Finally, they are returned back to the students for final analysis.
