Children’s practices with electronic sensors to understand and mitigate sound pollution in primary school

ABSTRACT

Background

To contribute to smart, inclusive, sustainable, and multisensory practices in science education, this paper presents research that studied the use of electronic sensors by children to address a sound pollution problem in their school. A didactic sequence was specifically designed and implemented to that purpose.

Participants

The participants of this study were a project Teacher/Researcher, and the children of eight 4th grade classes (four experimental groups and four control groups), in four primary schools.

Purpose

The research aim was to study whether and how, throughout the didactic sequence, children developed practices that are needed to understand and mitigate sound pollution in school, including acquiring, analysing, interpreting, and sharing environmental data, as well as interpreting, and applying information, making suggestions to solve the problem. The importance of the use of the electronic sensors was also assessed.

Design and methods

To answer to the research questions, during the didactic sequence, data were collected through the data collection forms, the collaborative platform, the pre and post-tests, and the children’s suggestions to solve the sound pollution problem. Statistical methods were used to process pre- and post-tests results, and a content analysis allowed the treatment of the children’s suggestions.

Results

The vast majority of children properly collected, registered, classified, and shared the acquired data. The statistical analysis showed that there was an improvement from the pre to the post-tests results, with the experimental group having more significant improvements. The content analysis of the children’s suggestions revealed that all the children made productive suggestions, but the experimental group made more specific and diversified suggestions.

Conclusion

Those results suggest that the experimental didactic sequence allowed and scaffolded children in using ICT tools to develop science education hands-on experimental practices, while understanding, analysing and contributing to solve a sound pollution problem in their schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Electronic sensors
• primary school
• environmental data
• didactic sequence

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges all the children, teachers and researchers that were participants in the Eco-sensors4Health Project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the FEDER (PORTUGAL2020) and Portugal State Budget (FCT) [LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-023235].