Students send balloon to space

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Students at the University of St. Francis and the students of Most Precious Blood School launched a balloon heading for space on Thursday.

The balloon is known as a High Altitude Balloon. It was expected to travel about 100,000 feet off the ground.

5th Graders at Most Precious Blood School and freshman at the University of St. Francis used the balloon to experiment with corn seeds, cockroaches and weather temperatures. Students hope to answer whether corn grows more efficiently in space, if cockroaches will really survive everything and how temperature changes.

Teresa Beam, Professor of Biology at the University of St. Francis said, “We are doing some new things to try and get kids excited about science.”

The balloon has a GPS tracker and hand radio tracking device. Professor Beam used prediction software and anticipates that the balloon will travel about 35 miles to the southeast of Fort Wayne.

Both the students and Professor Beam will look for the balloon to land ten minutes south of Van Wert, Ohio.