REsite invited us to give a hands-on workshop on citizens science, a topic that Waag is working on for quite some time now, with the latest Making Sense and Do-It-Together-Science projects as the main activities in this domain. Making Sense looks for methods and open source technology to empower communities in measuring their environment. And Making Sense was what we represented in Prague.

Prague, as many other European cities, is facing more and more environmental problems with the air- and water quality. So we took the water topic as a starting point to trigger the participants in building their own open-source webcam spectro-photometer that was developed for Waag’s BioHack Academy. The idea of this DIY kit is that if you shine light through water and ‘break’ the light, this results in a certain spectrum. This spectrum changes when things like minerals or other colour absorbing materials are present in water. So we looked at water quality in Prague and compared many liquids: from our own collected water from the Vlatva river, to the national liquid of pilsner.

Like many other citizens science experiments, the result is sometimes hard to make sense of, but triggers a bigger discussion about the role of citizens in our future cities. This is also what happened in Prague. Questions like: ‘How to engage with citizens in designing the ‘Smart City’, and ‘Why should we ask citizens to do this?’ came up. Waag Society sees ‘Smart Citizens’ as crucial in this future. In co-creation with many stakeholders we see that citizens bring an essential narrative to the discussion of the quality of living in our city. Hopefully this inspired some (future) architects to look more at combining bottom-up and community driven initiatives with their city planning and designing of the public space.

The conference ended with an inspiring keynote from Teddy Cruz, American architect and Professor at University of California, San Diego. Cruz is someone who sees the urge for community engagement in designing cities for the future. Because, as he claims: ‘we should rethink urban development from the bottom up, to change top-down policy’. That message supports the Smart Citizen in co-designing the future of the city, and that’s something we warmly welcome!

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Over the past few weeks, residents in the Placa have been gathering data with their Smart Citizen Kits, and making notes in their notebooks, comparing digital data with the specific things we saw and heard.

After our sensing period, we printed up graphs with the data gathered from all of the Smart Citizen Kits, and overlayed the times of the day to get a better sense of when noise levels were at their highest and lowest. We also compared the data we collected from the data gathered from Barcelona City Council’s sensors. We were amazed at how high the noise levels were on a consistent basis.

Our next step is to look at what to do with this data. We were visited by the folks from 300.000km/s, a firm of architects, urban planners and engineers, who joined us to start a conversation about how to use big data to paint a picture of Barcelona. They demonstrated ways of visualizing data in order to create different ways of seeing and understanding the city, including a map that marked a location in the city each time it was tagged on social media. This started some great conversations within our group about what kind of stories we are trying to tell about Placa del Sol, and about how we use the square. It also demonstrated the power of visuals to open doors for communication.

Art and design were part of another workshop we had with the design team Domestic Data Streamers. They showed us some of their innovative data visualization projects, and then engaged Placa del Sol residents in an activity to think about how to share the data findings, who we want to communicate with, and what we are hoping to achieve. This was a great first step to think creatively about our data and how it can be used to make a real change in the community.

Next steps? Stay tuned as we start to map a history of Placa del Sol and decide what we want our community to look like!

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Last week I visited the school de Regenboog (‘The Rainbow’) in Amsterdam (Gein). It was a sunny afternoon.

That was lucky, because we were going to measure UV light by making light-sensitive blueprint paper. And the fact that light contains severals colours was of course evident to children of the Rainbow school…

Making blueprint paper is not so hard to do, but you have to be very precise. You better wear gloves when conducting this experiment and with a classroom of kids that is a guarantee for a lot of fun. The necessary chemicals were weighed with the help of the class. They all watched the coloured powders, demineralised water and the precision scale… but stop! The liquid we were making has two components that are light-sensitive when you bring them together. So we had to find a dark spot to proceed and found one in the library.

The children made the UV light-sensitive paper by using watercolour paper, which is very suitable for this purpose as it can take up a lot of water. After drying it for ten minutes in a dry and dark spot, the meters were ready to use and also very nicely green-coloured.

To make the experiment more fun for the children, we used a sunscreen factor 50 to fingerpaint this on the green paper in the dark room. When everybody was ready, we took the papers outside in the sun to expose them to the light. And, almost magically, the paper directly turned blue—after a minute we had to stop the chemical reaction. Back in the classroom, we cleaned the watercolour paper with water. And just as we hoped for, the paper was indeed protected by the sunscreen against the UV light. The drawings became visible as light spots!

So, the experiment succeeded and everybody happy! With thanks to the pupils and teachers of the school, and to Alexandre Pólvora for the photos.

Note: some of the experiments of the Smart Kids Lab are already available in English, but this is still work in progress. The above mentioned meter is not yet translated, but coming soon. Have a look here.

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During the first and second pilots in Prishtina, we have worked significantly with young people, giving them an immense space for autonomous self-organization horizontally and through radical democratic decision making process.

We also experimented with “targeted measurements” – as new way of measuring locally – investigating the air pollution at a very local level. As decided by the Committee Members themselves, we worked particularly with primary school “Faik Konica” – due to its location in one of the most polluted areas of Prishtina – running systematic targeted measurements.

While our work, and the campaign, focuses on children and their rights to be informed and and to have access to clean air, we believe that parents and teachers of the school should be more authentically engaged with our work, but also with the struggle against air pollution. Therefore, between 10-11 March 2017, we decided to organize two events simultaneously: 1) Non-formal environmental education workshops with pupils of the school; and 2) Digital Bootcamp: “Save your children from the invisible killer” with parents and teachers.

Digital Bootcamp

The Digital Bootcamp involved several programme elements that were designed and delivered by the Committee Members. The Bootcamp has started on Friday afternoon with a round of introduction, followed by an interactive presentation of the work of Making Sense EU in Prishtina. Parents and teachers had also the chance to hear more in-depth information about air pollution monitoring at school (indoor and outdoor), we provided all the data collected and visualized the most polluted spots of the school. This was followed by an open forum where, parents, teachers and our team had a discussion around the situation in the school, but also about methodologies and tools we used during the investigation.

The second day of the Bootcamp has started with the theoretical input by Dr. Antigona Dervishaj, one of the Kosovo’s leading experts on health impacts of air pollution and who works for Kosovo’s National Institute for Public Health. She provided more information about the air pollution in Kosovo and has particularly focused on the impact of air pollution on children. This was followed by a hands-on afternoon, where parents and teachers have developed their practical skills on air pollution measurement using Airbeam, but also understanding of data reading and visualization. The Bootcamp was followed by another open forum around the question: “what can be done?”.

Conclusion

The conclusion of the Bootcamp resulted with an agreement among parents and teachers to establish Schools’ Green Community which will consist of: pupils, teachers and parents. This community will aim to work autonomously in longer-term on monitoring air pollution and organizing other actions on air pollution.

While the Bootcamp was ongoing inside the school, in another separated class, the children of the parents were attending non-formal environmental workshops.

These workshops are inspired by Paolo Freire’s critical pedagogy and Council of Europe’s non-formal education principles. A strong focus is given also to human rights, particularly looking at solidarity rights. The non-formal environmental workshops consists of short theoretical inputs around main concepts of environmental and air pollution; group building exercises with the aim to strengthen the group cohesion among the pupils but also increase awareness about team work, active listening, non-violent communication, etc.

The non-formal environmental education workshops have included also simulation game – one that we tested for the first time was called “Young Reporters” where pupils enters into the role of reporters and start to investigate about various issues in the school, such as: security conditions in the school, security regarding the traffic around the streets that surround the school, air and acoustic pollution, etc.

The findings of ‘young reporters’ will be presented to the school staff, but pupils themselves have also discovered new insights by investigating the above-mentioned issues. Variety of experiments have been conducted during workshops, mainly from the recently-translated Waag’s Smart Kids Lab, strengthening thus the cross-pilot collaboration within the Making Sense EU project.

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The aim of the event was to present the work done in previous pilots, to discuss the objectives of the Making Sense project, and to start to build a community of citizens who want to participate in the third and final pilot.

The event was an authentic celebration of citizen sensing!

There was a photo exhibition illustrating the key activities performed during the previous pilots; a real-time installation built by one of our community champions – which captured and visualised noise levels in situ at Kubik; and a number of presentations about how citizen participation, open source technology and data can help us to tackle environmental issues.

During the event two collaborative activities allowed us to map noise pollution hot-spots in the Gracia neighbourhood as well as the efforts, skills and time that citizens are willing to contribute to the pilot.

From the collaborative mapping task we identified that the Plaça del Sol is perceived as seriously affected by noise pollution.

A group of residents of the Plaça explained how this affected their everyday lives, while other participants committed to supporting this cause even when they didn’t live in the area or were not directly affected by it.

After the event at Kubik we all walked towards the Plaça del Sol where we deployed the ‘Noisebox’, an interactive installation that was fabricated by the community champions who took part in the first pilot.

The device comprises a wooden box equipped with a Smart Citizen Kit to which was a 5 meter long LED strip has been attached. Participants can press a button on the box to trigger the noise sensor.

The measured data is then represented through the LED strip. Around the installation, we created a conversational space, which included different stencils and gigantic pieces of chalk (also fabricated by the community champions) as incentives to people to write and share their views on the sounds and noises that they like and don’t like in the Plaça.

The deployment of the Noisebox attracted hundreds of people who were curious to find out more and experience the installation. Many provided data and comments that will help us to inform the pilot and moreover signed up to be involved.

We thank all the event attendees and residents of the Plaça del Sol for their invaluable enthusiasm.

We are looking forward to co-creating an impactful third pilot to make Barcelona a better place for all.

The post Making Sense of Noise Pollution in Plaça del Sol appeared first on Making Sense.

Here they joined us in our pilot focusing on understanding the local environment, and learning about how pollution can affect local species, in particular birds

We adapted and used some of the Smart Kids Lab activities originally designed by our colleagues at Waag in Amsterdam as part of the theme of going from analog to digital sensing.

The first phase was for the students to learn about various bird species native to the area surrounding the Green Fab Lab in Valldaura. They looked at the behaviours of the birds, where they prefer to nest, and the types of foods they eat, all with the aim of building bird feeders suited to each species.

The Fab Kids Lab workshop asked the students to consider how sensing air pollution and the acidity of water and soil (pH level) might be helpful to maintaining a healthy environment for the birds. We talked about how knowing the quality of the air around the birds’ preferred eating and nesting spots would allow us to ensure the birds are not exposed to toxins.

Monitoring the soil acidity also allows us to make sure that the plants the birds eat are healthy and thriving. How can we use everyday materials as well as technology to sense the conditions of our environment?

In a second phase, we measured the acidity of soil samples and some common household liquids using red cabbage juice as a gauge. Red cabbage naturally changes colour in the presence of acidic and alkaline materials, and provides an easy and inexpensive way to measure pH levels. The students were divided into 3 groups, each testing a liquid and soil sample.

After preparing the red cabbage juice by blending the cabbage leaves in water and then straining the pulp, we added cola, lemon juice, and dishwater to see what results they gave.

The kids were curious about how red the lemon juice turned the cabbage juice due to its high acid content. The cola was also quite acidic, while the dishwater turned the liquid blue, indicating an alkaline level. Next, each group tested a soil sample that included organic soil, soil from the surrounding urban streets, and potting soil used in home gardening. We were surprised at how neutral the soil from the street was!

The red cabbage gauge offered immediate and useful information on acidity levels, but how might technology provide another perspective?  The students By introducing the Smart Citizen Kit, we looked at how digital sensors can provide information over a longer period of time by tracking levels of environmental factors.went through the Onboarding experience, putting together a Smart Citizen Kit, and connecting it to the SmartCitizen.me platform where they saw how sensors are located across the world, and how data can be compared across various sites.

In a third phase, the students created air pollution monitors using juice cartons and Vaseline to capture particulate matter in the air. They also participated on an intensive maker workshop to create beautiful bird feeders suitable to the different species.The sensors were deployed alongside the bird feeders to be able to visualise air pollution levels around their birds’ feeding spots.

The final activity aimed to support data sensemaking in a creative way. We hid a bunch of Smart Citizen Kits around the woods and had them stream data from their secret location. The kids were then able to access the data through smartcitizen.me and were asked to make sense of them to discover where the sensors were hidden. The students played a game of scavenger hunt to discover where the sensors have been hidden, and guess what? They found them all!

The post Cabbage, Soil and Smart Citizen Kits: Sensing our Environments appeared first on Making Sense.

11 March 2017
5—7PM

KUBIK
Luis Antunez nº6,
08006 Barcelona, Spain

Interested in learning how to use technology to tackle environmental issues and generate positive change in your neighbourhood?

If that so, we would like to invite you to the launch of the third, and last Making Sense pilot in Gràcia this Saturday 11th March, at 17:00 in KUBIK.

Making Sense seeks to empower citizens with the use of open source methodologies and technologies, environmental sensors data capture and data literacy to address pressing environmental issues.

At the heart of Making Sense is citizen participation.

The Making Sense journey begins with citizens, concerned or curious about the environment, coming together in groups of varied backgrounds and capabilities, to capture environmental data, learn how to question data (scientifically and emotionally) and look for lessons within the numbers.

Then, together, we fabricate public interventions to raise awareness of the findings. By becoming aware and understanding the data of the world around us, we have a better chance to improve our quality of life.

The pilot we will launch on Saturday 11 March will include the implementation of personal sensors, discussions around environmental problems such as noise pollutions and the creation of an urban intervention.

During the event we will be able to listen to the experiences of the participants from previous pilots and participate in an public intervention created by Barcelona citizens from a variety of backgrounds, the participants themselves.

GET INVOLVED!

Eventbrite

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lanzamiento-making-sense-gracia-tickets-32324937759

See you there!

??

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The citizen sensor is able to measure a variety of environmental factors such as air quality, noise pollution and temperature. We found out that it’s great to play around with, although sometimes a little bit hard to understand for kids younger than 12 years old. But in the end, the idea of using open-source technology to measure yourself is brought to the youngest Smart Kids possible!

The idea was to leave the embedding of the sensors in the lessons to the teachers. They are the ones that know best how kids react to new technologies, and the level with which they can work with. It was quite challenging for teachers to adapt. For kids under the age of 12, the interface of the sensor and platform is still a little bit hard to grasp, but the enthusiasm and interest is there. When showing the data from the sensor in the school, interesting questions from the kids popped up.

What is this peak in noise- and air quality level?
Could it be that this is around the time that the school opens?
How is the air quality in the school compared to other ones?

While the accurate, calibrated and reliable answers to these questions are sometimes hard to deliver, the sensor brings up questions and the idea of do-it-yourself measurements, therefore the presence of the Smart Citizen Kit in schools is a huge step forward.

They are kid-sized steps, but in the right direction!

Next to the Smart Citizen Kit, there is also a Lora Bora sensor hanging at the schools, which senses air quality as well, using the LoRaWan network from the Things Network.

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The end of Making Sense’s Beta pilot is the beginning for the next aim of the project, to encourage citizens to design and implement our next pilot; made for real citizens by real citizens.

On February 14th we met at Kubik, the first co-working of Barcelona, to acknowledge our community champions for their active participation in the pilot and setting the stage for their future collaboration in the Making Sense community.

The team welcomed the community champions with an aperitif prepared by Slow Mov, a platform to purchase food directly from local producers while promoting responsible and sustainable consumption. We had the opportunity to taste organic handmade pizzas and a selection of artisanal beers brewed locally in Barcelona.

Then, the community champions shared their thoughts and opinions about the general experience of the Beta Pilot, talking about the issue of noise, their learning, the organisation, the team, and their general satisfaction about the pilot.

It was an emotional moment in which community champions talked about mostly appreciating the experience of meeting a great community of citizens interested in working collectively for positive change. They also acknowledged the job of the team in organising the activities and stimulating the cohesion of the group.

A drawback they mentioned was the lack of time to delve deeper into the activities, especially the making phase for our final action.

Community champions revisited all of the activities developed during the 3 months of the pilot, evaluating their level of satisfaction with each one and suggesting ways to improve them.

At the end of the session, we celebrated the graduation of the community champions, awarding them each with a diploma.

“The Making Sense Community Champions are citizens who actively contribute to the improvement of their environment through data capture, digital fabrication and public interventions to raise awareness of environmental issues to a wider public”.

This is not the end of their experience, it’s a new beginning of their involvement in the Making Sense community. As their diploma says, “The Making Sense team looks forward to a continued collaboration on developing citizen-led sensing and initiatives for positive social change”.

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We started our first experiments in the Smart Kids Lab at school. The Smart Kids Lab is part of a European project concerning the involvement of citizens in their communities. The project has various different components for citizens in Europe, but one of these components was designed specifically for children of primary school age. In Amsterdam, there are three schools participating in the project: the Boven het IJ Montessori school, the St. Jan Montessori school, and Rainbow Montessori school. Through the project, elementary school children will learn how to measure their living environments using specialized instruments and tools they build themselves. The measurements we do together are then shared with others on a dedicated website. This website will allow us to see the data we’ve collected as well as the data that other project participants have collected. If you’re interested in our findings, we encourage you to visit the website: smartkidslab.nl. There, you’ll find a lot more information about the project.

But what have we done so far?

We started with a baseline: how are the children currently doing in their environment? Is there something they’re worried about? Do they notice the quality of their environment? At the end of the project, after measuring various factors in their environment, the children will see how they can contribute to improving where they spend most of their time.

Then the real work started. First, we talked about the PH levels of ordinary things in and around the home. Lemons, for instance, are acidic—we all know that. But is sweet apple juice acidic as well? The school dentist certainly mentioned that it was. Could the ground also be acidic? And, if so, what does that mean for the plants that grow in acidic soil? Hydrangeas like acidic soil, while other plants find it less enjoyable. Soil that is too acidic makes for acidic groundwater, and that groundwater is then used for the production of drinking water. To answer these questions, we began experimenting.

Half of the group went with Mrs. Joke (who joined us for this project) and got to work making our measuring instrument: red cabbage juice. To make the juice, the group mixed red cabbage with water, mashed it with a hand blender, filtered it through a coffee filter, and poured it into cups. The red cabbage juice will change colour from purple to pink and red in the presence of acidic substances. Basic substances (the opposite of acidic, like soap), on the other hand, will cause the colour to change from purple to blue, green, or yellow.

The other half of our group focused on the substances we would be measuring. We had already gathered tap water, lemon juice, Fristi (a fruity yogurt drink), apple syrup without added sugar, and Fruitshoot (a sweet fruity drink). Outside, we collected sand, soil, and ditch water. We also collected two different types of soil: dirt from the garden (where lots of plants grow) and dirt from next to the road. Then we developed our hypotheses. Which would be more acidic and which would be more basic? Ditch water has all kinds of animals and bacteria that produce waste, which might make the water more acidic. Plants don’t like soil that is too acidic, so places where lots of plants grow will not be very acidic. Fruit Shoot is very sweet, so it’s probably not as acidic as Fristi. And lemon juice, of course, will be the most acidic.

Time to see how our hypotheses played out.

We poured purple cabbage juice into cups and then added different liquids. It was very exciting to see the colours keep changing.

Sometimes to red, sometimes to a light pink or darker pink. Other times to a deep purple and—when we added the soap—to a bright blue! Sadly, none of our substances produced the yellow colour that accompanies really basic substances. I guess we’ll just have to keep experimenting at home!

During our snack, we answered the questions: what did you accomplish after a lot of practice and what are you proud of? It was nice to hear about what we’ve mastered and how hard we worked for it. You could tell everyone was really happy to talk about how their efforts paid off.

After briefly playing outside, we quickly got to work on making the the fine particulates meter. What are fine particulates and where do you find them? Is there more fine particulate matter on the side of your house facing the garden or the side facing the street? And which window, as a result, would be better for you to open up on a hot day? Where is the healthiest place to go cycling? Along the highway to laugh at the people stuck in traffic? Or on a bike path through the meadows?

Making the fine particulates meter was actually very easy. You can use an empty milk carton to make a meter in no time. Just cut the milk carton into little rectangles about the size of a playing card. Then, coat the white side with Vaseline and hang the card in a place where you want to measure how many or few fine particles are in the air. This test does, however, require some time. Results will follow soon!

Check out the Smart Kids Lab

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