I do appreciate your response and thoughts on how it would be difficult to collect data regularly. I am hoping to install an XO-accessible weather station in Uganda this summer. A device will monitor the sensor and students can collect and post the data on their own schedule.
A large-scale project could start by choosing a simpler project where students send reports about what they see. Last December I was on a call with DigiLiteracy.org and Cornell's volunteer science program. Cornell is interested in bird counts from OLPC schools in the US, India, and Latin America. They also have a bilingual Celebrate Urban Birds program for city schools. Here is a report about their work with a school in Costa Rica: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/netcommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1693 I would be happy to help in bringing this program back to life. We have put digital graphs, cameras, maps, and networks in schools around the world; it would be amazing if we can connect them with practical science projects. Regards, Nick Doiron On Sun, April 18, 2010 11:44 pm, Yamandu Ploskonka wrote: > Provincia San Luis in Argentina is doing an amazing project of > calculating the carbon footprint of every community in the Provincia, the > kids go house byhouse interviewing the families on what kind of appliances > they have, number of lightbulbs, etc. Classmates running winnows, alas. > > > Please disregard the rest of my response below - I'm into nonsense, no > need to take any of that seriously, I just find it somewhat quaint I fell > into that, so I'm leaving it there > > as to massive data gathering, something on the lines of weather projects > could be fascinating, with adequate sensors. Anyway, so far we haven't > even been able to figure out even what it is that kids use their computers > for, which simply would require to see / spider / datamine the Journals. > To assume that we will be able to have kids regularly upload > information, and also somehow will we manage to get them previously the > proper sensors... > > Now, with *adequate* data processing, having weather data moving across > a locality with a couple hundred sensors *accurately* located would be > terrific, especially cross referencing that with satellite data and doing > it over a significant span of time. > > Same difficulty with anything of this kind. It's cute this was > originally sold as something that would use accelerometers in computers, > but, oh, it turns out you need separate sensors. > > I've seen a few very clever Science Fair seismic sensors, but even the > cheapest ones can run beyond what is practical to consider as individual > expenses. And don't forget calibrating them, etc. I would be surprised a > sensor that actually can give useful information would cost less than an > XO! > > > On 04/18/2010 09:39 PM, Caryl Bigenho wrote: > >> Hi Nick, >> >> >> Thanks for the link to the Science For Citizens site. Sounds like >> most of these projects are for the US only. I wonder if there are >> similar projects in other countries? Some really nice lessons could be >> developed for students to do with their XOs with web access. Does >> anyone know of others? >> >> Caryl _______________________________________________ SoaS mailing list [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas
