SPARKS — Serena Evangelista stretched back her neck as much as she could and squinted in the glare of a mostly cloudy morning. As some sunlight finally peeked through the gray sky, the 10-year-old got a final glimpse of a huge, fast-rising balloon that would immediately start reporting data back to the earth about the atmosphere.

“I’ve learned that the stratosphere is 20 miles high,” Serena said prior to the launch. “I’m looking forward to seeing how the balloon pops.”

Though students would never actually see the balloon pop or even where it would land, shouts of “Awesome!” from Agnes Risley Elementary School fourth graders ascended Thursday along with a hydrogen-filled balloon that carried a three-tiered basket full of two digital cameras, a GPS transmitter, several StratoCards, photos of students’ faces and a few bags of Cheetos.

Several classes received friendly assistance from a team of University of Nevada, Reno engineers in a project to collect data about the temperature and altitude of the atmosphere. Students called it their “High Hopes” balloon to make their studies in science and math a little more concrete. Several professors and students frequently pitch in for such projects to help kids learn a little more science and collect data at the same time for their own work at UNR.

The balloon was expected to remain in the air for about 90 minutes and rise to altitudes between 95,000 to 110,000 feet. As it rose out of sight, it appeared to travel northwest toward Pyramid Lake, where the UNR group anticipated it would descend. They would track and chase the balloon when it came down.

Travis Fields, a graduate student, said he likes the hands-on experience younger students get by helping to build three payloads, or the cargo that air or spacecraft transport.

“For some, it’s a first change to build something and get inspired to get into engineering,” Fields said.

One of the two cameras flown up was taking between three and six photos of the ground every 15 seconds or so. The second camera would be part of an experiment the students came up with themselves. They were sparked by a bit of curiosity about air pressure and included a few small bags of Cheetos to find out if they could capture an “explosion” of Cheetos. UNR professor Jeff LaCombe of material sciences said it was a smart experiment that he and his students never considered before.

After the launch, students of Doug Taylor and Brian Crosby went back inside their classrooms and kept watch of the balloon’s increasing altitude and direction as the GPS locator reported back results to a computer, which were posted on a smart board.

“The students have been studying the atmosphere’s layers,” Taylor said. “We really wanted to show them something concrete … and they can watch this data in real time.”

As for the UNR team, LaCombe said the experiment’s data can be used for a number of applications. Currently, Fields is experimenting with the sway of the balloon to make a parafoil that could become “smart” enough to identify a road to land on or near, instead of a balloon or other airborne device landing in the middle of nowhere, making it difficult to track.

LaCombe said something like that would be useful in a search and rescue operation.

“If anything needs to dropped from the air, if a plane needs to fly low enough to drop a package to help a rescue victim survive in a military situation, this would help find out how to do that,” he said.

Theoretically, it could also work with landing a sensor on Mars, he added.

But a benefit of launching the test from an elementary school is helping young kids to learn, he said.

“We don’t daily interact with grammar school kids, so it’s very encouraging to see their faces,” he said.

Risley principal Muriel Dickey said these events captivate students and keep them interested in math and science.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for students to use the content they’ve learned and apply it in areas that get them excited,” Dickey said.

It took time to prepare the balloon itself, but the UNR team also had to wait for Federal Aviation Administration clearance because Risley lies in the flight path for incoming southbound planes to Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

Just a few hours later, the balloon itself landed on the east side of Pyramid Lake, short of the distance the team hoped it would reach.

“It was not even close,” Taylor said by telephone while the team and teachers were reviewing the data. “We had overfilled the balloon to go up a lot faster and the expectation was it would reach the north side of the lake, but we found it on the southeast part of the lake.”

The balloon went up 107,874 feet into the air. The second camera didn’t capture much of anything because an orange balloon taped to the side blew up pretty big and covered up the camera’s shot, Taylor said.

The Cheetos bags did manage to make it up all the way, but one was lost and the other remained sealed.

“The kids are calling it the ‘space Cheetos,’ ” Taylor said.