Pilot experience to increase the environmental awareness of young students (12-18 years) through innovating formation by UPM researchers in the classroom

Abstract

The Dive & Breath project is part of the Madrid Deep Demonstration (DD) portfolio and it is supported by the Spanish Climate KIC Education Office (CK). The project promotes the participatory innovation of teenagers and incorporates experiential learning to guide them to the collective design and implementation of a network of the environmental quality sensors of their neighbourhood (air and water monitoring). The process is carried out by professors and is applied to pilot groups of students, and later, the students, based on their experience and learning, teach other students. This way, the replication phase of the innovative methodologies in the educational field is introduced. The interdisciplinary approach merges through games, observation, and data collection. The project has used ICTs tools, due to COVID circumstances. The practical learning has been developed through DIY (construction of sensors) and citizen science. The proposal incorporates innovative learning methodologies such as experiential learning, based on a collective construction of knowledge that brings together all the agents involved. This approach transcends the usual proposals in the educational field. In this case, from the design phase, diverse visions come together to build a conceptual framework on which practical knowledge is built through experience.