The Pizitz Middle School Highball Flight: Told by Students (Part Two)

On Monday, March 7th, the sixth graders at Pizitz Middle School in Vestavia, led by science teacher Mrs. Diane McAliley, launched a weather balloon. It was their first time to do it, and the results blew away all expectations. The goal was to go higher than 90,000 feet. They did, reaching an altitude of 106,693 feet! The goal was to retrieve the payload, which included two GoPro cameras, GPS and a temperature and pressure sensor with data logger. Two chase teams miraculously located the payload in a tree in Randolph County. The video is stunning and the data is spectacular. A team of students wrote about their experiences. We are sharing two of those stories today and two tomorrow.

The following blogpost was written by Nathaniel Bass, sixth grader at Pizitz Middle School:

Who needs Six Flags when you have science at Pizitz? In Mrs. McAliley’s science class, you don’t learn sitting at a desk, listening to a teacher lecture — you don’t even sit and read textbooks all day. You get outside and launch a weather balloon!

Meteorologist Bill Murray came to Pizitz and we had a day-long course for Pizitz “Junior Meteorologists”. We learned about weather and how it could affect our launch. That’s how the journey began, then it got serious. We’re talking about two GoPros, a 600 gram weather balloon, a meteorologist, and an awesome teacher! We launched the Pizitz Highball on March 7th with barely any cloud-cover or jet streams. The balloon took off at around 12:20 p.m. and stayed in the air (maybe not with any air that high up) for four and a half hours! Reaching a maximum height of 100,693 feet — we’re talking 20.2 miles into the air and we’re talking way past the troposphere and almost reaching the stratosphere, with a freezing temperature of -76 degrees Fahrenheit! The ascent took 3 hours and 49 minutes, with the descent only taking 47 minutes. “Mrs. Mac we have a problem! We lost connection with the Pizitz Highball for 45 minutes!” We thought it had landed. Were we ever wrong. We got back in touch and had found it had landed near Woodland, Alabama.

Now I ask you again, do we need Six Flags when you have Pizitz Science? This was probably the most fun (and educating) science project I have ever done! I learned so much more in these nine weeks than I learned in 4th and 5th grade combined. I give all the thanks to Mrs.Mac for being such an awesome teacher. Also thanks, Bill Murray, for helping us pick a launch date.

The following post was written by Ranee Brady, sixth grader Pizitz Middle School:

In January, Bill Murray (meteorologist) came to Pizitz Middle school to speak to the whole 6th grade about the conditions of the weather balloon launch. We got to view GFS models about the recommended weather conditions to launch our weather balloon. We used the GFS models (18 UTC local time) to find the perfect day to launch. We would look at the different models and view the vorticity, icing, wind speed, and precipitation of each day. We were given a chart, and the students labeled the different days as a “go” or “no go” day. The perfect day was March 7, 2016. All of the 6th grade gathered onto the Pizitz football field and watched as the large, helium-filled balloon, rose up into the atmosphere. We had 2 GoPros and a computer to take videos and track it. The balloon rose 20.2 miles up with an altitude of 32,520m (106,693 feet). The temperature got to – 60 degrees Celsius (about –76°F)! The ascending time was 3hrs and 45 minutes. It popped, and the parachute carried it in descent for 47 minutes. It landed in Woodland, Alabama. The recovery had a fun time tracking it! The next day, we were able to watch some of the videos the GoPro cameras took! They were amazing! This was a great experience, and I know I loved it!

Category: Hodgepodge