AC 2012-3421: STUDENT-CREATED WATER QUALITY SENSORS

This paper describes efforts to enrich STEM education through the implementation of a classroom project in which students design, construct, program and test water quality sensors. This paper provides an overview of the educational modules and sensors, which are suitably simple for design and construction from first principles by high school students while being accurate enough for students to make meaningful environmental measurements. The sensor building activities can be tied to core curricula, enabling the modules to be utilized in standard classes by mathematics, science and pre-engineering teachers without disrupting the semester teaching goals. Furthermore, the paper presents the project evaluation results of the three year NSF SENSE IT project, during which 36 teachers have been equipped, trained on these materials, and have implemented the modules with over 1,700 middle and high school students.