Explore, find, and share learning activities teaching environmental awareness
Includes activities using smart IoT planters in learning spaces
This activity consisted, first, in the creation of a 3D design which represents the data collected by the spike and which can also be viewed via the dashboard. After it, two workshops were done in the primary school Jesuïtes de Gràcia, collecting data for two different groups (of approximately 40 primary students per group), in two sessions for each group (control and experimental groups) in the two sessions conducted (a total of four workshops).
Students organize and set up a small greenhouse in a chose are within a school building. The chosen space is a closed outdoor space within the center of the building structure. The plants will be replanted by students following the decision on which plants to be reallocated to the greenhouse space. Students will assign roles to care for the plants
The school organized a visit by an agronomist with an expertise on indoor plants, at the school premisses, to present facts about them, talk about what they can offer to our everyday well-being, and how to properly take good care of them.
During this activity students were presented with the safety characteristics an indoor plant should have and where asked to research and choose a plnat of their likeness. They presented the outcomes of their exploration and the choice they made. The students then visited a plant nursery, they were presented with the indoor plants they chose.
The children will observe how a bean plant grows and capture the information in a journal. They will conduct a fair test whether the plant will grow successfully. For example, if the plant will need direct sunlight, partial sunlight or be placed in the shade. They will also discover what else a plant needs in order to grow.
This activity is intended for students to be able to understand that plants are living beings and what role sensors can play in understanding what is happening to them. The objective of this activity is to bring plants closer to younger students. Students will touch plants, water them, and understand that plants are living things. The telemetry will help them identify relevant indicators for plant life.
This activity teaches students how to program IoT interfaces using ESP32, Thingsboard and Telegram through an IoT system that monitors the status of a plant and its environment.
The importance of having healthy work spaces is key to people's well-being. This matter has acquired special relevance in recent years due to the pandemic, a period in which it has been necessary to balance variables such as CO2 and temperature. To this end, health-related organizations have drawn up recommendations on the ideal CO2 values (CO2<1000 ppm) and on how work spaces should be ventilated (cross ventilation) to minimize contagion.
We are entering a winter in which energy spending is going to rise drastically due to the impact of the invasion in Ukraine. In this context, some governments have already decreed measures to moderate energy consumption by establishing temperature limits for the use of heating (maximum 27ºC) and air conditioning (minimum 19ºC) in public settings .
It is scientifically proven that using certain houseplants indoors can help moderate these variables. In fact, there are plants that are especially suitable for regenerating CO2, and they also help soften abrupt changes in temperature and humidity as a result of opening doors/windows. How can we comply with government regulations without affecting health recommendations? In this practice we are going to try using technology and natural means.
To address this problem, it is proposed to develop a mobile application that makes use of an IoT system that monitors variables in indoor spaces. These variables (ambient temperature, ambient humidity, ambient light, CO2, and soil temperature) affect people and plants that live in the same workspace. For this, the application to be developed must collect, interpret, and give feedback to the user on the health conditions of the environment. It can also give recommendations to the user on what actions to take to adjust it to these regulations and/or recommendations (e.g., open/close window/door, raise/lower air/heating). In addition, you can display data on additional external sources.
This activity involves teaching primary school pupils the cycle of life and provides pointers to the start of life and the end of life and the stages of life. This activity is based on a short story which connects the stages of a plant’s life (e.g., the sunflower / the flower of happiness) with human life.
Creating automated sytem for monitoring enviromental conditions and for providing targeted care for indoor plants during extended school holidays. The system will utilise certain Spike measurements in order to activate the appropriate mechanism for watering, providing more light, better air flow and temperature control in the plants area.
The goal of the activity is to teach the kids the fundamentals of scientific journaling adapted to each educational level. To accomplish that I suggest 6 fundamental tasks to be done:
- Define the frequency of the data gathering.
- Predefine the data to be registered on the journal.
- Define the template / example journal for guidance.
- Follow the journaling plan.
- Share the final journal with peers.
- Discuss over different conclusions.
Group activity. The goal is to teach digital skills to students using data collected from plants. More specifically, the international standard measurements for each variable (eg temperature in degrees centigrade, carbon dioxide in parts per million), recommendations on appropriate values in learning spaces will be explored. An experiment will be carried out to see how the values collected by the system are adjusted in comparison to the recommendations.
The goal of this game-based activity is to guess the species of a plant given some piece of data.
Participants will learn about the different conditions and variables of a selected group of plants. And then they’ll be introduced to some anonymous information about one secret plant.
The participants that first guess the name of the plant (with fair reasoning behind it) will win.
The goal of the activity is to explain the process of photosynthesis and influence of CO2 on plants.
To do this, use two closable glasses in which you place cut pieces of peppermint. In one, you add additional CO2 from the cartridge of the Sodastream. Observe how the plants develop.
Used material:
Soda Stream bubbler with matching tube and CO2 cartridge
2 peppermint stalks of equal length (freshly cut, without flowers)
2 sealable, larger glasses
In this activity students will learn how often and how much water different plants need. Using their senses, and specifically by touching the soil, they will observe the soil humidity of different plants and try to discover the different water requirements of each plant.
The purpose of the activity is to empathize with a plant. To achieve this, students must roleplay as the class plant and start writing short stories about how they imagine the plant feels, perceive its environment, and manage challenges. The dashboard connected with the sensors will be used as the primary source of data related to the general status of the plant
The germination rate of seeds depends on the soil temperature. The pupils observe the influence of temperature in an experiment. They take two planters for this. One is placed on a small hot plate during the experiment to warm the soil. One pot stands on the cool ground.
How long does it take for the small plant to become visible?
We will analyze the effects plants have in humans in class environment: well-being & achievement performance. 1 semester - 60 minutes each session.
This activity will be organized within the frame of the STEM class in Highschool (12-15). A full year lesson plan with be deployed in order the students to experiment with TEASPILS system and a web camera growing a "healthy" plant. The evolution of the plant from a seed to a big plant will be monitored by the students.
Competition-like based on points, with one plant and Spike for each group. There is a range of measurement values that gives users more points the closer they are to the optimal values of the plant. Whoever gets the most points wins. Also, participants can see on a display their score compared to the rest of the participants, creating a virtual garden.
Starting from the data collected by the Spike, a data set will be created. With a pre-fixed "faked" data set, students are expected to do a research work in which they find out what could have happened to a plant that has experienced an extreme situation and how they could have reversed this outcome.
With this activity we intend to find out if students take better care of plants if they receive notifications on their cell phone or alerts on Thingsboard than if they take care of a plant in a traditional way. To do so, we will use a control group and an experimental group.
Each pupil chooses a tree in his or her environment and observes it over a pre-determined period of time. After an additional research phase, a presentation is prepared and the tree description is made available in a wiki.
The climate changes caused by global warming can have negative effect on plants: they absorb less nutrients from soil, productivity of plant lowers, invading species are favoured, etc. What measurements can be indicators of climate change? Can you identify from two datasets which one corresponds to the unhealthy plant under climate change effects?
Students observe the growth of plants in the learning space by collecting different data from the sensors and analyzing them to see their correlation in terms of plant growth. In addition, students observe and record the learning space condition before and after implanting the sensors.
The activity aims to understand the effect of plants in learning spaces. Students will collect manual and real-time data from the dashboard, analyze and interpret them using simple statistics based on the research questions.
The aim is to analyse how some of the effects of climate change on air or water can affect plant growth. Students will design an experiment to evaluate one of the effects of climate change on the growth of pothus cuttings.
How have the environmental conditions affected the plant during the last week? The goal is to understand fundamental concepts around data, using real data from the dashboard. Students will look at data (both in tables and in graphs), interpret single values and simple statistics, answer basic questions, and make predictions.
Students cultivate their own microgreens / seedlings. They have breakfast together and eat their home grown sprouts.
Indoor plants are placedin the classrooms. Pupils measure different parameters with sensors in order to make conclusions about the growth of the plants and the indoor climate.In addition, the pupils keep an observation log of the plant growth and reflect on their own condition in a personal diary.The results are analysed and interpreted in different teaching subjects. (e.g. biology, chemistry, psychology)
