Weather balloon from Shropshire school lands in Netherlands

The balloon was launched last week by an excited group of pupils and teachers from Coleham Primary School in Shrewsbury.

Pupils had fixed a camera, video camera, tracking device and model T-Rex on board the balloon which made its way towards the North Sea before teachers lost any contact with it.

It then washed up a beach on the remote island of Schiermonnikoog and was found by Ruth Wichers, who heard about its disappearance on Facebook.

Pupils are now desperate to see the footage taken from the balloon during its journey.

Year 5 teachers Tom Larkham and Tom Lowrie-Herz led the project.

Mr Larkham said: "The balloon was supposed to land near to Leamington Spa but it went about 500 miles further than that – which was pretty amazing.

"It ended up in the North Sea and we think that it was then carried on the currents to this small island where it was found on the beach. I think that we didn't put enough helium in the balloon to get it to rise quickly to 30,000 metres.

"Instead it rose quite slowly. We then lost contact with the balloon and we believe this is when it came down in the sea."

He added: "The plan now is that Ruth will send the video camera and the stills camera as well as the tracker and the dinosaur back to us and we will hopefully be able to recover some images which we will be able to use in lessons.

"The whole experiment was part of a school project. We had been studying space as well as science and the children had written to companies as part of their literacy module asking for sponsorship.

"We received money from Tanners Wines, Comet Cars and Sharps Roofing. Everyone really got behind this project and to know that the balloon went so far is great. We are just waiting now to see what is recoverable from being in the sea."

The project has inspired the children at school and Mr Larkham is now planning another such experiment.