Technology can help turn your classroom into a dripping rainforest, a smoggy city or an underwater shipwreck

Want your class to go green? These apps will get them hooked

Want your class to go green? These apps will get them hooked

With 2016 reported to be the hottest year since records began, the environment continues to make headlines across the globe. Climate change remains high on the agenda, renewable energy discussions roll on, and sustainability is becoming more involved in conversations about food.

It’s never been more important to talk about green issues in the classroom – and technology can help. From cutting-edge hardware to the latest smartphone apps, there are valuable tools for creating immersive lessons, and to bring the issues surrounding the environment to life.

From a journey into the natural world to learning about the habits of sharks, here’s some tech to help pique environmental interest in the classroom.

Conservation

Many of us will have spent time exploring nature alongside Sir David Attenborough. Now the BBC Story of Life smartphone app allows you to access 1,000 moments from the broadcaster’s output, offering bite-size portions on which to base a lesson. Clips from this app could provide the perfect inspiration for discussing the state of our oceans, or a climate change lesson could look at the struggle of penguins and polar bears, brought to life by Attenborough’s legendary narration.



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If these activities inspire the class to think about vulnerable or endangered species, then Ocearch’s smartphone-based Shark Tracker could provide context for an intriguing follow-up lesson. The project tracks sharks tagged for conservation reasons. The app allows users to watch their movements around the oceans, promoting a greater understanding of the populations and behaviours of these oft-maligned creatures.

Food sustainability

With 88m tonnes of food thrown away each year across Europe alone, waste is becoming an important subject to tackle at school. Students could take note of their own household food usage, to encourage them to think about their impact, before using an app such as Olio alongside class projects on recycling or food sustainability.

The app allows people to connect with each other and local businesses, so surplus food can be shared rather than discarded. This type of tool could feed in to an initiative looking, for example, at sharing waste food with good causes locally.

Air pollution

London saw historically high levels of pollution between 17 and 24 January this year, and the UK has broken EU air quality regulations every year since 2010. Against this backdrop, you could try making use of an air monitor app, such as Pollution, as the basis for a series of lessons on air quality or pollution. It collates data, creates visualisation of air quality across the globe in real time, and can encourage students to think about their local environment.

In future, Plume Labs Flow monitor might make an interesting classroom accessory, allowing classes to take regular readings and chart the air quality of their city. Currently in development, the device will measure pollution levels, exhaust fumes or household chemicals.

Plume Labs was also behind Pigeon air patrol, which tracked a flock of pigeons wearing tiny, pollution-sensing backpacks around London in March 2016 - and could add a fun case study.

A more global view of climate change can be woven into lesson plans by using the NASA EarthNow app. This uses near real-time data on surface air temperature, carbon dioxide levels and sea-level variation among other factors to create colour-coded maps of environmental conditions.

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Virtual expeditions

Virtual reality (VR) seems to have been tipped as the next big thing since the 1980s, but 2017 may be the year it arrives. With the likes of Oculus Rift and Playstation VR, headsets are heading towards the mainstream, and could make for absorbing educational tools.

While cost remains restrictive to widespread classroom adoption, the lower-cost Google Cardboard could go some way towards making a VR-assisted classroom a reality.

The educational possibilities of VR are clear – offering a fully immersive landscape for students to participate in. Companies such as ImmersiveVR are creating educational programmes for the technology, with Titanic VR and Apollo VR experiences already available.

Apps such as Google Expeditions, which allows teachers to lead their class on a virtual field trip, can be used as a memorable 360-degree experience to highlight environmental causes or issues. With the help of a VR helmet, a science class can be transformed into an underwater odyssey, or an exploration of the rainforests, giving hands-on experience of areas most impacted by environmental issues.

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