“We need to think about new ways of teaching and learning. The world of work and society demand from young people a set of skills that are not experienced in the traditional classroom.” With this perception, Teacher Rogers Méndez rethought the structure of his programming classes for the 3rd technical medium year at the Instituto Politécnico Bicentenario Juan Terrier Dailly, in the province of Curicó, in Maule, central Chile. The result: several innovative projects, including the Agro-Detect solution, which allows remote monitoring of air toxicity in agriculture.
When provoked about which questions they wanted to investigate, the groups strongly brought up aspects of the school routine and the territory where they live. The institution, maintained by Fundación Educacional Comeduc, serves a population with higher levels of vulnerability and whose families work in the countryside. Check out the initiative’s profile on Instagram!
As a starting point for the teacher’s methodology, the groups were encouraged to look at the school and its surroundings and the social challenges that affect the community in conversations with their families and neighbors. “This trio raised concerns about pesticides and fertilizers, a topic that is being discussed more and more in the region”, explains the educator.
Following the classroom proposal and encouraged by the foundation, teens who were interested could enroll in scientific opportunities and programs that would strengthen the project. By posing the issue, the group identified that Samsung Solve for Tomorrow could support them in thinking about a solution to the identified problem.
Working with the steps of Design Thinking, the trio advanced to qualify the problem, reaching the conclusion that the use of pesticides and fertilizers, as attested in the organizing document they wrote, “is of great magnitude, which still does not have a defined solution and that directly affects the environment, the health of workers and people living close to agricultural sectors”. For the teacher, the initial research and the problem definition stage were fundamental to understanding how the issue, which was local, was also a global problem, directly affecting millions of persons.
After understanding the problem, in the ideation phase, the kids decided to create an alert tool, capable of indicating the level of toxicity in the air. “In the beginning, of course, they wanted to solve everything, but they realized that a simple solution, which they could actually collaborate with and be able to execute, could make a big difference,” justifies Rogers.
The group’s first prototype consisted of an Arduino board, equipped with air quality parameter sensors, which detect, for example, the presence and quantity of carbon dioxide, methane and butane gasses, and trigger three message levels: good (or safe), medium (when patterns are outside normal), and alert (when patterns indicate toxicity). For the design of the model, they used the Tinkercad platform, and for the physical design, they made the hardware protection box in 3D printing, using PLA (polylactic acid) filament, a compound based on recycled materials and not harmful to the environment. For the tests, since they could not be exposed to toxic products, they did them using deodorants and aerosol cleaning products.
As they advanced in the program stages, mobilized by mentoring and in constant dialogue with other educators and members of the school community, the young people continued to investigate new ways to qualify the initial prototype. Among the challenges was ensuring a remote warning system, preventing agricultural workers from entering an unsafe area of the plantation after dumping pesticides. For this, they made a wi-fi and Bluetooth connection of the system with an application for smartphones, and then a robot cart, capable of transporting the sensor box, making it mobile. Finally, they adapted the solution for use in drones, capable of covering up to 2000 ha₂.
In addition to the technological resources, the group designed the logo and its entrepreneurial strategy, combining the various forms of offering the service as a proposal for continuous and low-cost assistance to farmers and rural workers. “As we move forward and win the award, we managed to form bridges that help students to take the idea off the drawing board and become something actually viable,” celebrates the teacher.
For Rogers, the real achievement was in the formation of the group and the growing involvement of the students with the work conducted: skills such as communication (especially in pitch construction), collaboration between them and theirs with the school community and the surroundings, and especially “learning by making mistakes”, taking the empirical process as the guiding principle of learning.
Project-based learning: new ways of teaching and learning
“I understand that we need to turn school into a learning community, where teachers and students collaborate by sharing experiences. It is necessary to change the paradigm from lectures to a project-based learning model, which engages youth based on their interests and the needs of their territories,” justifies Rogers.
For evaluation, the teacher worked with the group and other students of the discipline in the same way. He established rubrics and dialogically evaluated each stage of the projects, formalizing “deliverables”, which were presented and/or registered in Google Classroom. For example, for the definition phase, the teens had to present a diagram that defined the complexity of the problem; in the prototyping phase, they needed to show the initial prototype and the new designs elaborated from the tests. “In each phase, we worked with feedback, seeking that the assessment was in fact a way for them to learn and develop new skills and knowledge,” adds the teacher.
