Network of secondary schools observing CO2 in the air, The Netherlandswww.rug.nl/fwn/school-CO2-net

Harro A.J. Meijer, CIO, University of GroningenProject initiated jointly with the

Institute for Didactics and Educational Development (IDO)

Idea: Pupils from secondary schools get hand-on experience with real CO2 measurements: "CO2 is for real!"

Raises their interest for the global climate issues

Raises their interest for science and technology

Well-suited for exam projects

Selection, purchase and calibration of instrumentation

Development of software

Implementation at schools

Teacher's group -guided by IDO- for development of educational material

Project Contents:

Start of the Project: Grant by the Gratama Foundation (July 2005)

Funding for: (1) Instrumentation for three schools

Vaisala "Carbocap" GMP 343 CO2 meter

Davis fully-equipped wireless Meteo-station

(2) Student Assistantship for software development:

At schools: Automatic measurement and data collectionAutomatic data delivery to central database

Central: Web-approachable database containing all data

Extra (as part of their studies Education & Communication):

Development of full web-site for the project by master students

History of the project so far:

Instruments selected and bought : Autumn 2005Test run at my home: Christmas 2005

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400

440

480

520

-4

0

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8

24-12-2005 31-12-2005 7-1-2006

Test period

History of the project so far:

Instruments selected and bought : Autumn 2005Test run at my home: Christmas 2005Instruments and basic software delivered at the schools: February 2006Installation at the schools: April / May 2006

History of the project so far:

Instruments selected and bought : Autumn 2005Test run at my home: Christmas 2005Instruments and basic software delivered at the schools: February 2006Installation at the schools: April / May 2006 (+ "soon now")

General website ready: June 2006First data in web database: September-October 2006

First Results

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29-9-2006 30-9-2006 1-10-2006 2-10-2006

First week data

MaartensWLG

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990

995

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1005

1010

29-9-2006 30-9-2006 1-10-2006 2-10-2006

A school is not a university work group: Difficulties of all kinds with "basic" technologyMany people involved in a project like this:

Teacher, Technical Education Assistant, ICT person...Definitely not the highest priority (obviously)

=> Pace is slow, but we are getting there..

Development of Educational material is underway

Some "mid-term" remarks:

Socrates grant for CarboSchoolsNational funding available in principleSurplus costs are ≈ 4500 Euro per school

BUT:

We need a dedicated employee: Technicalities at the schoolsSoftware and web site maintenanceLeading the educational development

Best would be a teacher for 50% of his/her timePh.D. degree in Educational Development would be possible

Growth of the initiative: