Development of Sensor-Caching for Environmental GIS with the
GK-12 Classroom By: Louis Gutierrez ([email protected]), Christopher Shing ([email protected]), and Ron Eglash ([email protected])
NSF Triple Helix, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180
AAG 2012, New York City – Sesson 3156 Geospatial Technologies in the K-12 Classroom, February 26, 2012, 8:00AM-9:40AM
Ever since engineer David Ulmer “hid a treasure near his home,
posted the coordinates on the web, and challenged people to find
it” the concept of geocaching, that is a GPS enabled treasure
hunting game, has become a global phenomena [1]. As of this
writing, there are over one million caches worldwide. In the past
few years geocaching has found itself incorporated into the GK-
12 classroom, particularly for teaching subjects in history, math,
and technology [1-3]. However, lessons using geocaching have
yet to penetrate into the sciences. By incorporating low-fi
environmental sensors with the concept of geocaching we aim to
bridge the science gap. This combination of GPS technology
with low-fi sensors forms the bases of sensor-caching.
• Sensor-caching is a natural extension of geocaching
• Sensor-caching has 6 goals: build, find, sense, share, graph, and act.
• These goals originated and were developed in our 1st attempt while
making a universal environmental sensor.
• The universal environmental sensor got students to think about
environmental GIS. These activities created during this phase will
be instrumental to implementing the sensor-caching project in the
classroom.
• The universal environmental sensor was too expensive and
unreliable to maintain. A new sensor concept was needed.
• To reduce costs functionality was moved from “mostly on
hardware” to “mostly on software”
• A prototype was constructed using an Arduino microcontroller
• A prototype of the Android app and the user interface were created
• Continued improvement upon the previous website used for the
universal environmental sensor project have been made.
[1] A.R. Hurd and B.E. Schlatter, "Geocaching: 21st century hide-and-seek.,"
Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, vol. 76, no. 7, pp.
28-32, 2005.
[2] K. O'Hara, "Understanding Geocaching Practices and Motivations," in
CHI 2008 Proceedings, Florence, Italy, 2008, pp. 1177-1186.
[3] L. Matherson, V.H. Wright, C.T. Inman, and E.K. Wilson, "Get up, get out
with geocaching: engaging technology for the social studies classroom,"
Social Studies Research and Practice, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 80-85, 2008.
• Integration of the hardware, Android app, and website into a fluid
function system
• Development of an external power source to run the hardware for
lengths of time.
• Conduct sensor-caching activities within the GK-12 classroom.
Sensor-caching is environmental sensing
using a combination of open-source
technologies with a fun, GPS enabled
treasure hunting game. The objective of the
game is to locate a hidden sensor and
upload the sensed environmental data with
a mobile app to a website that visualizes
this information. The purpose of this research project is to
combine existing mobile technology with low-fi sensor devices
in respect to their ability to evaluate local environments,
facilitate environmental GK-12 education, contribute to a larger
body of science, and overall be fun.
BACKGROUND
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
RESULTS CONCLUSION
FUTURE WORK
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GOALS
BUILD SENSE
SHARE ACT
FIND
GRAPH
Focused on teaching students about GIS through sensors
Had students construct simple temperature sensors and field test (Build)
Had students use the RPI-ES01 universal environmental sensor (Sense)
Had students draw relevant data onto a large map and our website (Share)
Had students evaluate the information and discuss how mapping environmental
information is important to understand boundaries (Act)
PROS CONS
Hardware Open source architecture Short battery life, large size, lack of modularity,
difficulty in data transfer, expensive
Website Simple architecture Few data visualization options, slow interface,
no data validation, no 3rd party upload
Lessons Broad range of topics, including information
about sensors, data accuracy, mapping, etc
Lengthy, typically 2 hours.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is supported by the NSF under the GK-12 Triple Helix Program. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Science Foundation.
Bluetooth
SD Logger/
Microcontroller
To Sensors →
Lessons Learned: Universal Environmental Sensors Project
Build Sense Share Act
RPI-ES01
Development of Sensor-caching