Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

KUGAARUK/PELLY BAY
A couple of colourful hot air balloons could been seen in the sky above Kugaaruk late last month as a number of high school students learned about buoyancy.

Kugaaruk School student support teacher Frazer Robb, left, and math/science teacher John Misek practise inflating a hot air balloon with a hair dryer, in the school last month. Mari Misek watches in the background. - photo courtesy of John Misek

Made with glued pieces of tissue paper, the four balloons, made by approximately 40 students in the grades 10 and 11 math/science class, were about five feet (1.5 metres) in diameter, explained John Misek, a Kugaaruk school math and science teacher. He added a couple of pop cans were attached at the hole at the bottom to heat up the balloon.

To launch the balloons, the students held them up and blew hot air into them using a hairdryer, said Misek. Once the balloon has some shape, they lit the fire at the bottom and the heat expanded the balloon.

"The balloon is large enough the flame never comes in contact with the tissue paper and just the heat expands it and it takes on the shape of a sphere," said Misek, adding the two balloons launched late February flew very well.

"They went up probably 200 metres, I think, and they flew maybe about 150 metres downrange or 200 metres. So they flew quite a bit."

Misek said it's popular to make such hot air balloons in Brazil, where he lived for a few years. Geometry is involved when producing the spheres because the balloons are created in sections, he explained. When molecules are heated, they spread out to lower density, so the hot air in the balloon is of lower density than the air outside it. Misek said the students were skeptical of the project at first but loved doing it.

"It might take a little longer to teach the lesson and to do it that way but at the end of the day, they really understand what buoyancy is all about and it's exciting for them," he said.

Two of the students who participated in the project were Desmond Inaksajak and Donovan Ningark, both 15 years old.

Inaksajak said he liked everything about the project.

"Trying to light it up is pretty difficult ... because I have had to put hot air inside for a long time and then light it up," said the Grade 11 student.

Ningark said making the balloons went well but getting them to fly was more difficult because of the weather. The Grade 10 student added gluing the tissue paper pieces without ripping them was also challenging.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.