«Teaching Environmental Awareness with Smart IoT Planters in Learning Spaces»

Abstract

This presentation presents the objectives and progress of the TEASPILS project. The project focuses on creating environmental awareness towards plants and greenery, educating young people and their teachers towards ecological learning spaces. Actions will promote and foster awareness of environmental issues in an educational context, e.g. the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the UN Agenda 2030. Unlike the wider agenda of protecting natural habitats like rainforests, our approach aims to stimulate knowledge and appreciation of plants close to the people concerned, i.e. in urban indoor and outdoor environments. Especially, the effects of plants in classrooms, offices, homes and public spaces have hitherto been undervalued. The project will target young people from an early age onwards, with students from primary, secondary and tertiary level to learn about potted plants in their immediate vicinity. With this promotion of plant appreciation at a young age, the project intends to lay the foundation of much wider protective attitudes of natural and artificial flora (and fauna).  

With a technology-enhanced approach using sensors and visualisations, students will not only learn basic facts about plants, but also about care and responsibility towards them. We use the cascading approach via primary and secondary school teachers, educational leaders, lecturers and support staff to establish a wide-ranging plant supported school climate, as well as measuring and evaluating their impact on learning and social behaviours.

Bio

Bernardo Tabuenca received the Ph.D. degree in “Ubiquitous technology for lifelong learners” from Open University of The Netherlands, Heerlen, Netherlands, in 2015. He is currently an Associate Professor with Universidad Polit écnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, and member of the research group “Engineering education for a sustainable world based on IoT” (REFERENT). He conducted his research with the Research Center for Learning, Teaching, and Technology, Open University of The Netherlands. His current areas of research include Internet of Things, green technologies, technology-enhanced learning, and smart learning environments.

Edmundo Tovar, received the computer engineering degree and Ph.D. degree in informatics from the Madrid Technical University (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, UPM), Madrid, Spain, in 1986 and 1994, respectively. He is currently with the UPM as a Professor of information technology in enterprise. He has served as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the OpenCourseWare Consortium (2009–2013), Executive Director of the OCW Office of the UPM (2008–2012), and Executive Director of the Open Education Office at UPM (2013-2016). He is currently President of IEEE Education Society (2021-2022). He leads the UPM Research Group REFERENT in technologies applied to Open Education.