[etm117]

This is truly great. I hope the teacher(s) are doing a bunch of follow-up work teaching about how and why this worked. Also use that interest to drive into other topics such as how the balloon gets its lift versus a rocket engine.

This type of out of the ordinary teaching gets kids excited about learning. And the best part is because it is exciting, they probably do not even realize that they are "learning", they just go home and talk about all the awesome stuff they did putting a balloon into space. And the talk of that "stuff" is all the stuff they learned without needing to sit and study from a book or have a teacher lecture at you while you stare out the window.