About

We monitor our environment every day. We collect data such as the outside temperature, pressure, humidity, and rainfall and periods of sunshine, to record and predict the weather. It is done by scientists or the government. We can also measure pollution, such as air pollution from factories and cars, water pollution, noise pollution and more, as there are many kinds of pollution. Ordinary people can monitor their environment too. We may want to know the temperature in our own home, or outside in our garden. We may want to learn about pollution where we live, or at our school.
 

Your task

Design an environmental monitor for your home or school to give you useful information about your environment. Choose something that you would like to monitor, for example the weather or pollution and so forth. Your environmental monitor may be made of any suitable material, but it should have electrical components, and parts such as temperature sensors or whatever you need, and it will be powered by batteries or mains electricity, and it must safely enclose the electric parts. Your environmental monitor must display or record its data in a way that is useful to you. Construct a working model of your environmental monitor and test it. Work on this project on your own, or together with a classmate.
​​​​​​​

The design thinking stages

Follow the five design thinking stages to ensure that you think of everything and do everything necessary in order to succeed in your design project. First, you must UNDERSTAND the design topic and the needs of the users. With that understanding, you can DECIDE what is important to your design solution and what is not so important. Then you CREATE to come up with ideas and improve them. Then you BUILD your chosen design idea in a physical form and improve it through trial-and-error. Finally, you TEST your built design idea to get the opinions of users. ​​​​​​​Use the methods from the Design Thinking for Schools website as you follow the design thinking stages.
 

Note for teachers

Doing student design projects that use electrical parts or microcontrollers such as Arduino requires:

• teachers who are able to supervise such a project;
• laboratories or workshops with electrical and electronic parts and tools;
• and students who are trained to work with electricity, tools, and equipment.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Read the guide for teachers on Safety for the BUILD Stage for Level III to safely supervise this design project.