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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middler School teachers Tyler Tidmore and Diane McAliley inflate a weather balloon with helium while 6th graders George Phillips and Luke Parsons assist.
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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middle School teacher Diane McAliley lines up with 6th grade students to release their weather balloon on October 30, 2017.
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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middle School teacher Tyler Tidmore releases helium from a tank while 6th grade students George Phillips, left, and Luke Parsons, right, hold up the weather balloon as it inflates on October 30, 2017.
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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middle School teachers Diane McAliley and Tyler Tidmore set up the pay load for the weather balloon released on October 30, 2017. The 6th grade science teachers recieved a PTO grant to conduct the experiment with their students.
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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middle School teacher Diane McAliley and 6th grade students release their weather balloon on October 30, 2017.
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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middle School teachers Diane McAliley and Tyler Tidmore release the pay load of a weather balloon on October 30, 2017. The teachers worked with their 6th grade students to launch the balloon and gather data about weather conditions.
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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middle School teacher Diane McAliley, right, secures the parachute for the pay load of their weather balloon with help from 6th grade students Luke Parsons, left, and George Phillips, center, on October 30, 2017.
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Sarah Finnegan
Pizitz Weather Balloon
Pizitz Middle School students Luke Parsons, left, and George Phillips, right, test the wind speed using an anemometer on October 30, 2017. The 6th grade class launched a weather balloon as part of a PTO grant.
The sixth grade class at Pizitz Middle School gathered on the school’s intramural football field to release a weather balloon Monday, Oct. 30.
The students began their weather unit in classes about a month ago, and the release of the balloon was the culmination of those lessons. Equipped with a radiosonde and three GoPros, the balloon collects information about atmospheric conditions such as atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed.
The expenses for the balloon were covered through a PTO grant of $1,200.
Students were involved in the physical launch as well as in the preparation process, measuring wind conditions with an anemometer to determine which direction would be best for the launch. Students even used their knowledge of weather conditions to select Monday as the ideal launch date.
“[The students] have been preparing for this,” said Diane McAliley, the sixth grade teacher who helped spearhead the project. “They’ve been tracking the atmospheric conditions.”
The 440 students in this year’s sixth grade class were the third consecutive class to launch a balloon over a period of two years.
“We started this is March of 2016, and then we did it in May of 2017 for last year’s group [of 6th graders],” McAliley said.
President of The Weather Factory and AlabamaWx Weather Blog contributor Bill Murray visited the sixth grade class over a period of two days to help teach students about atmospheric conditions. His wife, who introduced him to McAliley in the project’s inaugural year, attended this year’s launch.
“When you get the pictures back, you can see the atmosphere and the curvature of the earth,” Murray said. “It’s really neat.”
The balloon remained in the air until about 2 p.m., before it burst and went into freefall.
“It can get to be the size of a kitchen,” Murray said. “It’s huge before it bursts, and then it freefalls for a long time before the parachute catches.”
The balloon landed in Carrollton, Georgia Monday afternoon.
