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Up,
Up and Away
From Skyscrapers to Outer Space
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How high
are satellites, clouds, and the world's tallest trees and buildings?
How high do jets, hot air balloons, migrating birds and butterflies
fly? On the highest wall you can find, make a model of the earth's
atmosphere to scale. Using altitudes provided on the list below, start
on the ground and go to the edge of outer space. (If you can't find
a wall tall enough, make a "zoomed in" version for events
close to the ground, using a larger scale. Label the scale for your
readers.) This lesson provides great practice for converting from English
to Metric measurements, too.
English
Units |
Metric
Units |
Altitude
of Various Familiar Things |
517
miles |
|
Orbiting
NOAA-15 satellite (used for tracking earth?s weather and wildlife
migration, too.) |
250-435
miles |
|
Our
atmosphere?s exosphere (outer space begins at upper level) |
30-50
miles |
|
Our
atmosphere?s mesosphere |
65,000
ft |
|
High
altitude record of hot air baloom (1988, Lindstrand) |
63,360
ft |
|
Twelve
miles high |
11-30
miles |
|
Our
atmosphere?s stratosphere (Contains the ozone layer.) |
6-11
miles |
|
Our
atmosphere?s troposphere (Contains most of our weather.) |
60,000
ft |
|
Tops
of the highest cumulonimbus clouds (?thunderheads?), which may
poke into the lower stratosphere from a base only a few thousand
feet above the ground! |
58,080
ft |
|
Eleven
miles high |
54,000
ft |
|
Only
1% as much oxygen as at sea level |
55,000
ft |
|
Cruising
altitude of the Concorde jet |
52,800
ft |
|
Ten
miles high |
47,520
ft |
|
Nine
miles high |
42,240
ft |
|
Eight
miles high |
36,960
ft |
|
Seven
miles high |
36,000
ft |
|
Only
10% as much oxygen as at sea level |
36,000
ft |
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Cruising
altitude of a passenger jet |
31680
ft |
|
Six
miles high |
29,028
ft |
|
Highest
mountain in the world (Mt. Everest) |
29,000
ft |
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Bar-headed
geese seen and heard crossing Himalayas from India to central Asia |
26,400
ft |
|
Five
miles high |
21,120
ft |
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Four
miles high |
21,000
ft |
|
Mallard
duck once struck by a commercial airliner over the Nevada desert |
20,000
ft |
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High
clouds (cirrocumulus, cirrus) bases found above this altitude |
20,000
ft |
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Middle
cloud (altocumulus, altostratus) bases found below this altitude |
20,000
ft |
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Radar
echoes show some migration at this altitude (few songbirds, more
shorebirds) |
20,032
ft |
|
Highest
mountain in North America (Mt. McKinley) |
20-40,000
ft |
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Jet
stream, the river of upper altitude, high speed winds |
15840
ft |
|
Three
miles high |
18,000
ft |
|
Only
50% as much oxygen as at sea-level |
11,000
ft |
|
Monarch
butterfly seen during fall migration by glider pilot |
10,560
ft |
|
Two
miles high |
10,000
ft |
|
99%
of bird migration occurs below this altitude (all species) |
10,000
ft |
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Bald
eagles known to have flown this maximum height |
6,500
ft |
|
Low
cloud bases (cumulus, stratus, stratocumulus) found below this
altitude |
6,500
ft |
|
Upper
height of daytime ?boundary layer? (the lowest layer of the troposphere?s
two layers) due to thermals. |
5,280
ft |
|
One
mile high |
5,000
ft |
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Only
10% of bird migration (all species) occurs at higher altitude |
5-6,000
ft |
|
Typical
maximum height of thermals in North America (although can range
higher in spring and fall) |
3,230
m |
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Elevation
of Monarch Butterfly sanctuary in Mexico (El Rosario sanctuary). |
2-4,000
ft |
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The
bulk of songbird migration occurs at this altitude. The maximum
height is evidently limited by ambient air temperature (> -2C),
not by low oxygen levels. |
2,720 ft |
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The
world's tallest humanmade structure (Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United
Arab Emirates) is 2,720 ft (828 m) tall. It opened on January
4, 2010. |
2,000
ft |
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Average
maximum altitude of hot air balloon flight |
2,000
ft |
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Two-thirds
of all bird-aircraft collisions occur below this altitude |
1,483
ft |
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Height
of Petronas
Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
|
1,454
ft |
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Height
of the Sears
Tower in Chicago, USA) |
600-900
ft |
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Between
sunset and dawn, when nocturnal migrants fly, our atmosphere?s ?boundary
layer? (the lowest layer of the troposphere?s two layers) is lower,
cooler, and more stable than during daytime due to thermals. |
500
ft |
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Except
during migration, most birds fly below this level. |
367
ft |
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The
tallest living tree |
151
ft |
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Height
of the Statue of Liberty |
0
ft |
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Fog
is defined as a low stratus cloud with a base on the ground. When
fog lifts, it becomes a true stratus cloud. |
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