BALLOON FIESTA

CURRICULUM

PROJECT ONE: Tuning into Balloons

Pupils brainstorm and share any ideas, knowledge or experiences they have about hot air balloons.

What would it be like to fly? How do the pupils think the world would look from 500 metres up in a balloon?

If you had your own personal balloon, where would you go & why? Write a short story.

Balloon Research Study Skills: Weblinks at:

http://www.ballooningaz.com/html/balloon_history.htm

http://www.questacon.edu.au/html/ballooning_history.html

Have pupils conduct library and Internet research on the history of the hot air balloon to answer the following questions …

• What did the Mongolfiere brothers believe caused a balloon to lift? What gave them this idea?
• How far did the 1878 Jaques Charles’ hydrogen balloon fly?
• When did the first ‘manned’ balloon fly and who were the first aeronauts?
• What were the main problems with the first balloons? (they cooled down and landed quickly)
  

Display all discovered history of the balloon and ballooning in a time line form with captions.

Balloon Challenges: A Balloon Drama

Have pupils speculate on how people in those early times would react when seeing a balloon for the first time.Tell the class that workers in the fields of France used to stab the balloons with their pitch forks, believing them to be‘monsters from the skies’!Have groups prepare and reenact a scene from the late 1870’s …

• when a balloon lands in a field
• as reporters who have travelled back through time. File a live report and interviews.
  

A Balloon Message Technology Challenge

The challenge is that students are unable to walk but want to send a message to a person across the room.They decide to use a common balloon to send this message.

• How will they attach their message to the balloon?
• How will they try and control the direction their balloon moves?
• Have groups compete to find how far they can send the message.
• Try different shaped balloons.
• Can the balloon be modified in any way to aid control?

Making a Hot Air Balloon

Develop the idea that there are two different ways that we can keep balloons aloft, eg the balloon can be filled with a lighter than air gas like the helium filled fairground balloon or by heating them as in hot air ballooning.

Enthuse groups of 2-4 pupils to make their own hot air balloons that will rise about 3 metres.

Materials and Tools

- paste - scissors
- large sheets of tissue paper
- electric hair drier or fan heater

1. Make a large tissue sheet by pasting three sheets together.

2. Repeat this 5 times to make 6 large sheets.?

3. Place all sheets carefully on top of each other and glue them together around the edges only to make the cutting out of the panels easier.

4. Trace the shape of the balloon panel on to the top sheet

• 5. Cut out carefully, you will now have 6 separate balloon panels.
• 6. Carefully paste the six panels together to make the balloon, leaving one end open. Make sure there are no gaps!
• 7. Make a collar for the balloon by folding another sheet of tissue paper into four. Glue the strip to the panels at the open end to form a neck.
• 8. Use a hair dryer or fan heater to inflate the balloon. Pupils hold the balloon. When they feel it lift, they release it!
• 9. Devise fair tests and have pupils compete in a balloon aloft contest for height reached and time aloft.

Other Ballooning Activities: Design a Balloon

Your pupils are graphic designers who have been chosen to design a balloon for one of your local area businesses. The balloon can be of any shape but it must represent the nature of the business that has hired them, eg

• a local shoe shop could have a balloon in the shape of a boot!
• The name, colours and logo of the business must be represented on the balloon.

It must be colourful and able to be clearly seen from a distance. Pupils design visibility tests to check their colour combinations.

Plan a School Ballooning Venture

Have pupils investigate the most common wind directions in your district. Using maps, they are to plan two possible balloon trips for tourists starting from the school playground.

• What would they see on the way?
• Where would they land?
• Design a promotional brochure