Middle School Environmental Education

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• Middle School Environmental Education
• Spring 2008

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Background

• NSF grant to encourage middle school girls to
  develop and maintain an interest in science and
  engineering
• Our approach
• Create county-wide network of low-cost outdoor PM
  sensors
• Develop and teach curriculum based on sensor
  network
• Assist I-TEST teachers

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Goals

• Long-term goal
• Inspire middle school girls to gain an interest
  in science and engineering
• Quarterly goals
• Design and test feedback control system
• Create wireless network to access PM data
• Develop lesson plan
• Test Antarctica game and provide feedback
• Assist teachers with I-TEST lessons
• Mount PM system on Preuss

EBU-I
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I-Test Classroom Visits

• Provide technical support using Vernier LabQuest
  handheld sensors

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I-Test Classroom Visits

• Various lesson plans designed by teachers

Polar Bears and Global Warming Explores the
negative effects of global warming on polar bears
and their environment
Fabric Absorption of Light Examines the
differences in the light absorption of fabric of
various colors and thicknesses
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Expand Your Horizons

• Global warming lesson plan topic
• YouTube videos used to show polar bears as
  indicator species
• Greenhouse gases discussion
• Demonstration of the Convection Cycle

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Preuss School Classroom Visits

• Lesson plans centered on environment and sensors

San Diego Wildfires and Air Quality
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Eye Sensor Demonstration

• Objective Introduce concept of sensors in easily
  relatable terms
• Demonstrate that eyes act as sensors

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Photoresistor Sensor Experiment

• Students create their own sensors
• Photoresistor connected to multimeter
• Flashlight shined on paper under photoresistor
• Photoresistor detects light reflected off paper

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Solar Power Lesson Plan

• Discussion of renewable v. non-renewable energy
• Students shine flashlight on small solar panel
  connected to voltmeter
• Position of light varied and resulting voltage
  measured
• Students learn how solar panels work

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Interactive Website

• Hosted on the TIES server
• Will allow students to upload/view PM data
• Partially operational
• www.ties.ucsd.edu/ITEST

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Collaborative Educational Game

• Tested game and provided feedback to SDSC
• General game-play suggestions
• Specific problems hindering operation of game

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Feedback Control System
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Environment Control

• Main goal
• Make the PM sensor suitable for outdoor
  environment
• How It Will Be Done
• Program the Basic Stamp microcontroller to
  control the humidity of air flowing through the
  sensor system
• Design and fabricate durable and long lasting
  enclosures for electronic components

Parallaxs Basic Stamp II and Board of Education
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How the System Works

• Why Humidity Control
• Environmental factors may adversely affect the
  performance of electrical components
• How It Works
• The BS II microcontroller is programmed to
  maintain a specified relative humidity level by
  controlling a solid state relay
• The SSR acts as an on/off switch and when
  triggered, allows a voltage supply to the heating
  pad
• Once ideal RH levels are reached, the BS II
  microcontroller triggers the SSR to off mode,
  preventing voltage supply to the heating pad

Schematic
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Essential Components

• Sensirion Temperature/Relative Humidity Module
• Omegalux SRFG-103
• Heating Pad
• Basic Stamp II Microcontroller
• Solid State Relay

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Overall Structure Design

• NEMA 4X Enclosure Purchased
• for the Basic Stamp Board of Education
• built to withstand harsh weather conditions
• Enclosure Built
• for the Solid State Relay
• weather proof and virtually unbreakable

Polycarbonate Enclosure
Nema 4X Enclosure
Circuit Diagram/Wiring

• Polycarbonate Material
• extremely durable material
• high impact resistance
• may be laminated to produce bullet proof glass!

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Testing Analysis

• Experiments were conducted using a damp sponge,
  PM sensor system, and Feedback Control Components
• As the sponge raises the relative humidity level,
  the feedback control regulates the on/off switch

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Fan Control

• In order to decrease the relative humidity to a
  desired level, the fan had to be turned off
• This would help to increase the rate of
  conduction and reduce the heat loss due to
  convection

• Efficiency
• The rate at which the heating pad decreases the
  relative humidity level is much higher when the
  fan is turned off than when the fan run
  continuously

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Wireless Network

• Antennas
• Hawking High Gain Outdoor Directional
  Antennas
• 14dBi / 2.4Ghz
• Approximately 2 mile range
• USB Adapter
• Hawking Wireless-G Adapter w/ removable
  antenna
• 2.4Ghz / Data transfer _at_ 54Mbps
• Upgradeable antenna

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Data Acquisition

• Confident Data Acquisition using wireless
  network
• Consistently records 8 hours of data in
  excel file

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Class1.cs

• Program currently fetches 8 hours of previously
  recorded data and writes to an excel file
• The Ideal case fetch current streams of data,
  and update the excel file instantly.
• A work around Fetch five minutes of previously
  recorded data, and write to an Excel file.
• Lines of code in file have been changed, but
  testing is needed.

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Automation

• Automate sensor processing by using a matlab
  file.
• It extracts excel file data, plots points on to a
  graph, and uploads it to the TIES website for
  easy access.
• Place this file in the windows startup folder, to
  have it boot every time Windows is started.
• this has not been implemented
• File has not been tested yet.

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Fabrication

• Sensor Enclosure
  mounting plate
• Hardware Enclosure
• Conduit

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PM Sensor System Mounted!

• System mounted on the roof of EBU-I
• Easily accessible location
• Allows for sustained, long-term testing
• Simulates actual mounting set-up to be used at
  middle schools

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Budget
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Future Plans

• Continue testing PM sensor system
• Develop new PM sensor using BASIC Stamp (no
  Netbotz!)
• Fabricate and implement hand-held PM sensors
• Continue I-TEST teacher support
• Continue developing PM sensor based curriculum

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Acknowledgements

• I-TEST Research Team
• Steve Roberts
• Season Mussey, Preuss School
• Francesco Carusi
• Jan Mandy (Best Advisors Ever!)