Schiesher students earn visit from a hot air balloon

If today's weather is calm and clear, there should be plenty of smiles on the faces of 400 students and teachers at Lisle's Schiesher Elementary School.

That's because Schiesher is expecting a visit from a hot air balloon called "Betty Bovine."

The school is one of only 32 across the country to earn a spot on the Beemster Cheese 2008 Hot Air Balloon School Tour across America.

"Flying the hot air balloon is weather sensitive," pilot Rebecca Elkins said. "To fly we need calm surface winds, no rain and clear or overcast skies."

The school presentation will begin with the inflation of the balloon and demonstrations on how it works. A balloon consists of a wicker basket gondola, propane fuel tank and burner, instruments, the colorful envelope and a deflation port.

Powered only by the wind, a hot air balloon's speed and direction are determined by different altitudes that a well-trained pilot reaches to guide the balloon.

Elkins is a certified teacher and Hall of Fame balloon pilot who, together with her crew chief Dennis Zevotek, will take six lucky Schiesher teachers for a tethered ride as the entire student body watches from a grassy field.

The student council raised $669.81 in a spirited contest to select the six teachers and school support personal from a field of 48 willing educators. All funds benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Beemster Cheese picks up all costs to have the balloon visit a school. The Holland-based company has a similar program in its homeland and extended the idea to benefit children in the U.S. when its products became available here.

Besides the awesome beauty of seeing a hot air balloon rise and descend, Elkins wants kids to reach for the sky.

"I tell students to dream big and craft the best life for themselves," she said. "Find out what it will take to make you happy."

Elkins' Power Point presentation educates students about the value of eating healthy and focusing in school to achieve great things in life. She talks about nutrition, reading and setting goals.

The experience ties in to lessons the third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students are working on. Students in district nurse Patti DeNichols fifth-grade nutrition class will hear what it takes for a pilot to stay in good health for flying.

"We will discuss how a good pilot needs proper rest, sleep and eating," Elkins said. "We need to take care of our brain and body."

Students also may learn how different cheeses are made depending on the season.

"The cows of the farmers' co-ops in Holland where Beemster cheese is made have been in the barns all winter and about two weeks ago were let out to enjoy the pesticide-free spring pastures," Elkins said. "The first of the early spring milk is especially delicious and makes into a wonderful natural cheese."

Fourth-grade students last week ended their study of pneumatic power, which is air power created from a balloon. The students were part of the Kids Design Engineering program at the DuPage Children's Museum in Naperville, thanks to a grant from the Lisle Education Foundation.

That creative program challenges students to craft an invention to go further than two feet either by land, sea or air, said fourth-grade teacher Dena Hicks.

Museum staff members came out to the school on two occasions to talk about the possibilities and help students develop their ideas. Then a field trip to the museum workshop allowed students to construct and test their creations.

History and science blend when Elkins talks about the start of ballooning in 1783 when the first living creatures aboard a flight were a duck, rooster and sheep. The flight lasted a total of 15 minutes.

"(The flight) was in keeping with scientific methodology," Elkins said. "The duck and rooster are both birds and one can fly and one can't. The sheep was chosen because its heart and lungs are similar to that of a human being. Both are about the same in size, capacity and need about the same amount of oxygen.

"A human had never been in those altitudes before and we weren't sure if there was enough oxygen at those levels to support human life."

Questions about weather, safety practices and reading maps often are answered in a presentation. The youngest students always ask if a balloon can catch on fire, Elkins said.

"Students ask how they can learn to fly, have I ever run out of fuel and what is the highest I've flown, which is 2,400 feet," she said.

The educational event might inspire a student to create a poem or story about the experience. New vocabulary words might include gondola, ballast and tethered.

Elkins began her own story as a child wanting to be a commercial pilot but then studied to become a music teacher. Twenty years later a casual ride in a hot air balloon made her realize her dream of flying was still possible.

"I took a giant leap into aviation and never looked back," she said. The opportunity to bring her love of flying to students completes her full circle.

In 1997, Elkins was one of the hot air balloon pilots flying the Encyclopedia Britannica balloons at Lisle's Eyes to the Skies Festival.

Although hot air ballooning is receiving enthusiastic interest at Schiesher today, the rest of the community will have to wait until July when the annual festival has 20 hot air balloons scheduled to lift-off.