Adolescents from Drøbak Montessori School and Kongsvinger Montessori School in Norway joined forces for a rather unusual mission: launching a weather balloon carrying scientific equipment, a camera and a small statue of Maria Montessori high above the Earth.

One of our goals was to send the camera high enough to capture the curvature of the Earth. We wanted to see for ourselves what our planet looks like from the edge of space, and perhaps capture a simple reminder that, wherever we live, we are all part of the same world.

At first, sending a balloon into the stratosphere might sound simple. Fill it with gas, attach everything and let go, right?

We quickly discovered there was a lot more to it.

We had to prepare and test the equipment, read about what would happen to the balloon as it climbed, solve practical problems and work together across two different schools. We also attached a GPS tracker so we could follow the balloon’s journey and, hopefully, find it again when it returned to Earth.

Then launch day finally arrived.

We gathered at Drøbak Montessori School, prepared the balloon and watched as our project, with Maria Montessori on board, lifted off and disappeared into the sky.

For a while, we could follow its journey using the GPS.

Up and up it went.

Eventually, the balloon reached the stratosphere. And there it was: the Earth far below, the thin atmosphere along the horizon, the darkness above and the curvature of the planet we all share.

And then we lost contact.

Suddenly, we had no idea where our balloon was.

All the equipment, the camera, our data and Maria Montessori herself were somewhere out there.

We waited.

And then, unexpectedly, the GPS signal appeared again.

There was just one problem.

Maria Montessori had landed in the River Glomma in Eastern Norway.

Students from Kongsvinger Montessori set out to find her. What had started as a science project now turned into a real search mission. After quite a bit of searching and problem-solving, they finally managed to locate and recover the weather balloon.

And amazingly, Maria Montessori, the camera and the equipment were still intact.

We had our balloon back, and with it came the footage from a journey none of us had been able to see from the ground.

So now we have a question for you: How far could your idea go?