STem education program for AIR pollution in schools
▶Summary
The STAIR project emphasized the critical need for clean air in educational environments, an often overlooked yet essential element for effective learning and health. By integrating STEM education...
▶Objectives
The STAIR project emphasized the critical need for clean air in educational environments, an often overlooked yet essential element for effective learning and health. By integrating STEM education, it provided instructions and knowledge on how to easily build at school an innovative Air Quality Monitoring System using an ARDUINO environmental microcontroller, in order to measure air quality both inside and outside classrooms. This analogical/digital hands-on educational approach, complemented by experiments like the Blue Sky Test and Ozone Testing, aimed to inform students, teachers, and parents about the risks of polluted air, including asthma, allergies, and airborne illnesses. The "STAIR Air Pollution Education Program" sought to educate school communities on the significance of maintaining clean air to foster a healthy learning environment. To achieve this, the project launched a multilingual ePlatform (https://www.stairs-erasmus.net/) offering free access to 3 toolkits, guidelines, and digital learning materials to promote innovative solutions for environmental challenges, encouraging simple actions to enhance air quality. This initiative also aimed to foster hands-on experimentation, teamwork, and tech use.
▶Activities
The project implemented two main activities split into several sub-activities. The first activity, "A1 Co-design for the STAIR platform creation and Toolkit for air quality education" (02/23-06/23), entailed developing a platform, forming a partner monitoring committee with monthly online meetings for the creation of contents (3 toolkits, assessment tools, videos, quiz). After the creation of contents a Online training for teachers was held to introduce the teaching methods to teachers, involving 12 online + 4 teachers . The partnership built three DIY Arduino hardware prototypes (one for partner). Additionally, 9 self-training videos were produced, available on YouTube. The second main activity, "Platform and Toolkit testing and validation" (07/23-01/24), involved testing the STAIR platform in the three partner's regions in schools. 49 students (30 expected) and 8 teachers (3 expected) were involved, surpassing expectations. They used the platform and provided feedback. one webinar and reg. events were implemented to present the result of the project and make its fruition and use available to everyone (both the platform and the analysis of the results achieved are freely available and online .
▶Impact
The project outputs www.stairs-erasmus.net: 1 online platform with all training materials at stairs-erasmus.net/home. 3 toolkits in multiple languages. 1 Guidelines manual for methodology adoption (stairs-erasmus.net/guidelines), already uploaded in the EU platform (extra output not foreseen in the application) 1 Kahoot game for engaging learning (kahoot.it/solo/quiz). 1 quiz for self-assessment on air quality (stairs-erasmus.net/quiz). 9 training videos on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0oT4y_q9jhSe4AUqcIpw4A and on the project platform (stairs-erasmus.net/videos). 2 Assessment tools measuring the project content's impact (stairs-erasmus.net/questionnaires). 1 assessment survey concerning the satifaction of teachers participating to the online training course (to evaluate the quality of the deliverables before the piloting ) 1 Online teacher training + possibility of remote training using the videos available on the platform (how to create the arduino microcontroller, how to code the software, how to implement analogic exercises in school 1 Assessment survey to check the quality of the online training for teachers - 3 regional piloting phases, - 1 stakeholder webinar, - final dissemination events at reg. lev.