Project: "DIY Værstasjoner for grensesprengende læring"

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Authors: Harald Sodemann, Hans Christian Steen-Larsen and Ole Edvard Grov

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Funding from iEarth: 40 000 NOK in 2020

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The participants met for two sessions where they build their own small weather stations according to a design developed within a Bachelor project in electrical engineering with Høyskulen på Vestlandet i 2017. The three sessions were organised within a brief break of the COVID-19 restrictions that allowed for a gathering of a student group of that size. The two sessions lasted for about 4 h each, including a break where food and drinks were provided. Many of the students had not had direct contact with each other due to the pandemic restrictions in the preceding months, and were more than happy to be together with other students in a semi-formal environment.

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The building of the small weather stations involved selection and preparation of the electronic components, soldering of cables and connectors, sanding the 3D-printed housing components, mounting, and testing. In addition, students received an introduction to web communication protocols and database technology. All these were aspects that the students normally would not be exposed to during their study program.

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Four teachers/assistants helped the students with the different technical tasks. Thereby, it was astonishing how quickly engagement and curiosity spread among the student group, and how cooperation developed: As the four teachers were hardly enough to help each student with each task when needed, the students that were done with one task spontaneously started helping and explaining the others what they needed to do next.

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It turned out that the two sessions were not sufficient to perform the entire spectrum of tasks foreseen in the project. While the two sessions allowed for the building of the weather stations, there was insufficient time for detailed testing of the stations and their configuration for data communication with the remote server. The students were thus sent away with the stations in their hands just before the summer break, all of them planning to set up the stations at a place at their homes. However, none of the students completed the setup process, such that the stations would deliver data to the remote server. With new pandemic restrictions after the summer, no follow-up session could be scheduled in time. It was very important and interesting to discover this unexpected hindrance in the entire project implementation from the pilot project funded by iEarth.

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Nonetheless, we note an overwhelming positive impact from this small, low-cost initiative. An immediate evaluation showed that students noted the limitations with regards to time but gave overall very positive and even enthusiastic feedback. Several of the participating students have by now either completed their Masters or carried out master studies. Two students that participated in the DIY course asked years later for advice when planning their studies abroad, because they wanted to follow up from the workshop with more background in electronics lectures, citing the positive and motivating experience of building the small weather stations.

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Due to the shortened budget when funding was granted, it was not possible to develop more than a basic data collection interface for collecting the station data. The electronic components were cheaper than budgeted, amounting to a cost of about 600 NOK per weather station. In the end, the overall spending was then less than 10000 NOK, instead of the planned 50000 NOK.

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The results from the DIY weather station course in terms of experience gained for future implementation where distributed within and beyond iEarth during a video seminar (iEarth digital learning forum), that can be seen below, as well as a poster presentation during the annual Geolearning forum. The plans to repeat the DIY course is also part of a teaching project awarded to GFI (GFI co-create) and will be continued in that framework.

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