An environmental education project that measures particulate matter via an Arduino interface

• Main Authors: Aristotelis Gkiolmas, Constantine Dimakos, Anthimos Chalkidis, Artemisia Stoumpa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-01-01
• Series: Sustainable Futures
• Subjects: Arduino; educational robotics; atmospheric pollutants; Environmental Education; Physical Computing; Constructionist
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666188820300204

This work presents a case study that investigates the influence of a collaborative environmental education construction project on students’ attitudes, knowledge and skills’ improvement. Within this project, the students of a vocational senior high school (Chryssoupoli, Kavala, Greece) created a robotic device in order to measure the environmental pollutant particles PM2.5 and PM10. The case study adopted participatory observation techniques, in order to have a direct and in-depth study. The intervention was implemented in five stages: activation, exploration, inquiry, creation and presentation. The evolution of the whole procedure was recorded in teachers’ and students’ diaries. These recordings, together with the artefact itself, as well as the students’ presentations of their work, constituted the data of our research. The results indicated that the students’ attitudes towards environmental issues, their knowledge of the specific problem studied, and their technical skills were all significantly improved.