Exploring local micro-climates with an open-source mesh of sensor motes

This paper describes an on-going effort in a school in Singapore to leverage a networked mesh of open-source environmental sensors to help teachers surface students' evolving intuitions and conceptions about their local microclimate through a STEM-based curriculum. Data polled from the sensors is represented visually in an immersive environment which is a facsimilie of the school campus. Students' intuitions about geography and other disciplinary domains are - by definition - tacit, yet they are critical in shaping understanding of broader disciplinary concepts. Through surfacing such intuitions in ways which are authentic to the students, the former become boundary objects which can subsequently be dialogued about with peers and teachers. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.