Application of a Solar Balloon Activity in a Course for Pre-Service Elementary Education Teachers

Elementary education students seeking licensure at St. Catherine University must complete three hands-on, inquiry based science courses including “Engineering in Your World”, an applied physics course which emphasizes use of the Engineering Design process. During the Spring 2014 Semester, high altitude ballooning was introduced into the course. Student teams built payload boxes to collect experimental data and participated in a weekend launch that included chase and recovery. Although students enjoyed the activity, the equipment and knowledge thresh-hold is too high for these students to use HAB activities in their own future elementary education classrooms. In an effort to provide our students with a ballooning experience that they could use in their classrooms, solar balloons were introduced in the Fall 2014 Semester. In this activity, students applied the physics concepts of forces and buoyancy, to build and launch solar balloons to meet design objectives. The use of low cost construction materials and simple construction techniques makes this ballooning activity accessible and usable in elementary and middle school classrooms