Sixth-graders going to a creek. It is
fun, they get to be in the water, they learn about water quality, but the
experience doesn’t have to end there. There’s so much to continue learning
about water quality and you
can’t constantly bring the people physically to the streams for it, so the idea
of an app that would be on the hands of children that tend more to be outside
would make them interested on how all the environmental aspect and
sustainability come together.
"They are more interested on the bugs
than the app” says Rosemarie Santos, interim Director for the Center of
Environmental Education, which is good. The app helps be civically engaged,
more responsible, and by doing that with children and elementary-school
teachers the impact is even bigger as they are the new generations.
This first app actually inspired a
second one. This one goes beyond water and gives visibility of a person’s
carbon footprint. The interesting aspect is that a prototype is being developed
as part of a phase 1 grant and if successful (compete and win in April 2015 in
Washington) it can go to a phase 2 for further development. The app helps the
person economically (‘you can save this $$ if you used the bus or walk versus
using the car’), at a health level (‘you can burn these calories if you walked
there versus driving’), at an environmental level (‘you can reduce these metric
tons of CO2 if you walked versus drive, or lower the heater in X degrees’), and
at a social level (‘given traffic conditions you can reduce the CO2 if you waited’).
Dr. Christine Curran is proud of the
students’ coordination from Marketing, Informatics and Environmental Sciences.
All the best for them in April 2015!
Sources: The Northerner. "Environmental
Evolution" December 2014 http://goo.gl/2GZ5ZV and WNKU.
“Students create an app to track carbon footprint” February 2015 http://goo.gl/hDrtzi
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