PEOPLES Project on schools

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CITIDEP - Research Center on Information
Technology and Participatory Democracy
PRESENTING CITIDEP WORK IN SCHOOLS IN SUPPORT OF
PEOPLE - Population Exposure to Air Pollutants in
Europe
CITIDEP is a partner in the Project PEOPLE...
www.citidep.pt www.citidep.net
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PEOPLE - Entities Promoting
PEOPLE - Partners in Portugal
Institute for the Consumer Presidency of the
Council of Ministers Lisbon Project
Coordination. DCEA - FCT-UNL. Dept of
Environmental Sciences and Engineering, New
University of Lisbon DRAOT-LVT, Regional
Administration of Environment and Land Use
Planning for Lisbon and Tagus Valley, Ministry of
Cities, Land Use Planning and Environment. CRSP-L
VT, Public Health Regional Center for Lisbon
Tagus V. , Ministry of Health.
DMAEV, CML- City Department for Environment and
Green Spaces, Lisbon Municipality Quercus
National Association for the Conservation of
Nature CITIDEP - Research Center on Information
Technology and Participatory Democracy
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PEOPLE - Population Exposure to Air Pollutants in
Europe

• 1. Assessment of Benzene levels
• 2. Learn the impact of outdoor and indoor
  emission sources (including smoking) on human
  exposure to Benzene, for risk assessment of
  populations in Europe
• 3. Compare Benzene air pollution levels in
  European capitals, in function of emission
  sources, local meteorological conditions, citizen
  behaviour and air quality policies
• 4. Assessment of the impact of air quality
  policies (EU directives), local abatement
  measures and personal behaviour on exposure
  levels to Benzene
• 5. Raising the awareness of citizens about air
  quality and the impact of personal behaviour
  (transport and smoking habits).
• 6. Validation of pollution exposure models.

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Contribution to objective 5 of Project PEOPLE
Raising the awareness of citizens
Why Schools? POWER OF SCHOOLS TO PROMOTE
SOCIETY CHANGES PEOPLE ALLOWS PARTICIPATORY
SCIENCE CITIZENSHIP Students help
scientific data gathering Students study and
research the topic Students join citizens
debating results
CITIDEP PROJECT PEOPLE FOR SCHOOLS
(targeting ages 6 to 16)
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Participatory Science- Awareness through
participation

• Learn CITIZENSHIP through Chemistry)
• Use new sampler technology to break barriers
  between science and citizens
• Use advanced Information-Communication
  Technologies to break age, geographic and social
  exclusion barriers
• Use new educational tools to connect high-schools
  and elementary schools
• Develop a critical learning of citizenship

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CITIDEP promotes a network with scientists,
teachers and students
Lisboa (Pt) Viana do Castelo (Pt) Açores
Islands (Pt) Nantes (Fr) Manchester
(UK) Edinbourgh (UK)
Lisbon schools were part of the Benzene sampler
net

• Using Internet (web broadcast) and
  videoconference to allow access of remote areas
  and student communities abroad

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CITIDEP PEOPLE - CITIZENSHIP PROJECT Inovative
educational tools
280 students 19 teachers 9 schools directly
involved (high elementary schools)

• IN THE CLASSROOM (9 months)
• Student inquiry Study Benzene as a pollutant
• Lab sessions Particles on the paper /
  Elastics and pollution
• Environmental game highschool students teach
  younger students
• STUDENT INTERACTION
• 15 Oct 02 Videoconference with PEOPLE expert
  Web broadcast
• 18 March 03 Videoconf. broadcast chat
  with PEOPLE expert
• 12 June 03 Role-Play debating citizenship issues
  related to PEOPLE
• Estimated audience 50 schools 500 students

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CITIDEP Activities Before 22 October 2002
15 October 2002
lt- Lisboa Viana -gt
Activity Videoconference and Internet Broadcastin
g, with PEOPLEs expert, for students from the
10nd grade
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2002 - 2003 Highschool students with Elementary
school students
Activity Environmental game Learn with the
environment, playing!
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2003 Highschool students work with Elementary
school students
PEOPLE Videoconference and Internet broadcasting
II with chat for students from the 2nd and 3rd
grade
Students in Lisbon say goodbye to students in
Viana do Castelo
Activity The air exists, although we can't
see it
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12 June 2003
Activity Role-Play on PEOPLE issues
Characters Parliament member (PS) Cancer
specialist (M. Doctor) Smokers association
pro-active
Car Manufacture Industrial Oil Industry
Owner Querqus member (environmentalist) Gas Pump
worker
We wanted students to also use REAL results from
PEOPLE Unfortunately, the PEOPLEs results were
not made public before 12 June 2003
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(No Transcript)
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Difficulties and Impediments

• Zero funding. All based on CITIDEP network
  solidarity including highly motivated teachers
  (paying expenses from their pockets), and the
  adoption of this project as the degree work of
  one teacher. That is nice and important, but not
  sustainable/replicable without at least some
  institutional funding in the future.
• Level and quality of public technical support to
  schools (e.g.videoconference) is decreasing to
  the point of compromising the work of students
  and teachers. Last videoconference nearly failed
  because kids could not hear anything for 1 h.
  This is the result of a wrong policy of divesting
  in public education. Poor schools cant afford
  private sector service prices.

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Discours du Commissaire Philippe Busquin (UE)

• À Lisbonne, PEOPLE a été associé à un
  projet didactique pour sensibiliser les élèves et
  les enseignants à la problématique de la
  pollution de lair dans les villes.
• Ce projet, appelé PEOPLE CITIZENSHIP ,
  regroupait 9 écoles, 19 enseignants et 280
  élèves. Pendant 9 mois, ce projet a animé les
  cours et les activités parascolaires. Il sest
  clôturé par une vidéo-conférence diffusée dans 50
  écoles et une audience de 500 étudiants.

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CONCLUSIONS

• The raising awareness process starts at school
  age
• Young students can clearly contribute to gather
  information with real scientific value
• As participants in the benzene study, their
  discussion of the environmental and health
  problems developed sharper critical and
  reflective skills
• Parents drawn by the public recognition of their
  kids contribution got involved, amplifying the
  effect.

The information empowerment lead to an active
participation and awareness of their
responsibility towards the community and
environmental policies.
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CITIDEP - Research Center on Information
Technology and Participatory Democracy
Follow up

• As suggested by JRC/IES-PEOPLE, CITIDEP
• considered to extend PEOPLE-Citizenship to
  other cities in Europe with PEOPLEs partners
• The project PEOPLE-Citizenship was presented
• at the International Conference on Public
  Participation and Information Technologies, at
  MIT, Nov. 2003
• Participants from France, Italy, Austria and
  Slovenia, expressed interest to cooperate in a
  similar project
• We should make the best of this momentum. But
  this requires institutional support.

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CITIDEP - Research Center on Information
Technology and Participatory Democracy
EURO-LIFE-NET

• CITIDEP proposes a new environment-health
  program
• building on what works! PEOPLE/GLOBE/BOINC
  experience
• focus on current EU strategic priorities
  concerning environment and health (e.g. APHEIS
  focus)
• connect the gathering of valuable scientific
  data with raising citizen awareness through
  participation
• target schools as a key partner and as a
  ready-builtin network and infrastructure at EU
  scale
• create a sense of European Scale Cooperation at
  citizen level.

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EURO-LIFE-NET
In each School in the EuroLifeNet, groups of
students lead by a teacher will adopt an
EuroLifeNet Node, and keep a regular record of
indicators measured on this Node.
Node ID School, GPS Long/Lat/Z, type
Bio-Physics parameters at the Node
Socio-economic parameters in a circle (or grid)
centered at the Node
Composite data (tracing data around the node, eg.
students carrying sensor 24h measuring personal
exposure)
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EURO-LIFE-NET
All EuroLifeNet Node share their data and
integrate it at multiple scales, feeding
different uses and agregate records.
Adoption of common data protocols
Data validation procedures with institutions
Sets of tool kits for schools and teachers
Use of integrating tools and architectures
Events inter-schools and public awareness