The Eco-sensors4Health project in teacher training: Using sensors to raise awareness in environmental health

Abstract

The Eco-sensors4Health research project proposes the use of everyday Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), such as sensors, in the creation of healthy and sustainable environments in school. Complementarily, the TEL@FTELab (Technology EnhancedLearning@Future Teacher Education Lab) research project investigates how a technology enriched training can improve teachers' education. The research presented in this article was developed in the context of both projects and created a set of multidisciplinary learning scenarios to raise awareness in environmental health, through the use of sensors in teacher training. The referred scenarios focus on various dimensions of environmental health in schools, such as sound and air quality (trough the study of carbon dioxide concentration in air). The assessment of the use of sensors to explore such dimensions of environmental health in school made it possible to validate learning scenarios and envision multidisciplinary practices of prospective teachers regarding the empowerment of children to eco-innovate in environmental health.