When Andy Beck, a high school band director for the England School District in Lonoke County, heard of a friend's unsuccessful attempt to launch a weather balloon to the edge of space, he didn't let it burst his creative bubble.
Instead, Beck contacted Gifted and Talented Program Coordinator Wendy Kittler in fall 2012 to float the idea of a class project. With the help of Michael Love, a science teacher at England High School, the three educators embarked on a mission to involve Kittler's third-through-sixth-grade students in a science experiment.
On Thursday, 22 students along with Beck, Kittler and Love successfully launched their payload — a styrofoam package containing a video camera, Kittler's iPhone and several guitar picks (light-weight mementos for the kids) — attached to a weather balloon and a parachute.
The flight, Kittler said, was recorded to have reached 88,280 feet, or 16.6 miles, above the earth and took two hours and eight minutes to complete. The package, which began in England High School's football field, was retrieved about 60 miles away near Rondo, Ark.
The students earned money to fund the project — about $700 — by operating a school supply store, Kittler said. This week, the students will analyze and plot the data from the flight computer for a presentation to the England School Board on May 20.