Learning takes off

Blue and yellow dots speckled the sky as about 225 students and teachers from Columbia Independent School released balloons Thursday morning and imagined where they would end up.

The launch celebrated the new academic year and served as a schoolwide project. Students attached a stamped, self-addressed postcard asking it to be mailed back with the name of where it landed and the title of the finder’s favorite book.

Eight years ago, balloons celebrated the school’s inaugural year, and Trent Amond, head of school for CIS, said he was happy to revive the event adding an educational component with the postcards.

“It makes it more than just a celebration,” Amond said, “because now we can work it into various aspects of our curriculum.”

The teachers will plot the places they receive postcards from on a large map and keep a list of the book titles. Beyond that, Amond is not entirely sure how else teachers will use the returned information. “I am sure there will be lots of activities in the classroom that allude to it,” he said.

Social studies teacher Jason Bricker said he will incorporate the map into his geography classes, but he also sees a valuable lesson in the festivities.

“I think it’s cross-curricular, and more importantly, it’s about bonding — to get older and younger students together,” Bricker said.

Amond said he recognizes there is a concern about the hazard balloons might pose — for example, to marine life — and said he has received a citizen’s complaint. He hopes the people who find the postcards dispose of the balloons properly.

Barbara Savage, director of Columbia Independent’s lower school for kindergarten through fifth grade, found the balloon launch more than a celebration of the new school year.

“In a way,” Savage said, “this is symbolic of where your education can take you.”