Teddies In Space

It sounds like a bad sci-fi movie from the 80s, but it is actually a really, really cool science project. Students at the University of Cambrige recently managed to put four teddy bears in space by using a weather balloon. The maximum altitude reached was about 30km, and to prevent the bears from freezing solid the students designed and built space suits for them to wear. This was really the main part of the project, and was an excellent way of teaching the students the principles of insulation, convection, conduction, radiation, pressure and loads of other exciting physics. Oh, and the students in question were actually aged about 11-12, and I think this is a wonderful way of getting young kids excited about science. I really hope other schools follow Cambridge’s example on this one. 

I mean, how cool is that!