Guest Post: Picking a Launch Date by Bella Gentry

On March 21-22, 2017 we conducted Launch Weather Officer Training for the 395 sixth graders at Pizitz Middle School in Vestavia. They were an amazing group, led by the sixth grade science teachers there. Using all the students’ talents, they will launch a weather balloon in to the stratosphere for the second straight year on a day that the young people choose for optimal weather.

One of the talents is journalism, and sixth grader Bella Gentry penned this Guest Post for the blog about the experience. Thanks Bella!

“Pizitz students are learning about meteorology with the help of meteorologist Bill Murray.

He taught them about how to make a forecast and how to read weather charts. They read weather charts that included data on 850mb vorticity, 300mb winds, 10m precipitation, 700mb relative humidity, and 10m winds.

Also, they learned about the different units of time such as universal time, 12-hour time, and 24-hour time.

They also practiced selecting a date for the launch of their weather balloon, PiBaL 2017. They did this by looking at the weather charts that meteorologists use every day and examined the data displayed.

By doing this, they became ‘Weather Officers In Training’ and ‘Launch Weather Officers’.

Bill Murray and his assistants created a Weather Officer Training Handbook for the students.

They accomplished a lot during this two day workshop, so I would say it was a success.”

~ Bella Gentry

Category: ALL POSTS, Headlines