EduStation: London
Introduction
EduStation: London is focused on working with schools to make London the most environmentally monitored city in the world, contributing to our understanding of the capital's environment as home to ~9 million people and as a National Park City. Measurement is the basis of effective management and schools can have an important role in extending the depth and breadth of official monitoring by UK Environment Agency, UK Met Office and Air Quality England. Our www.freestation.org low cost, low maintenance, connected monitoring technology built, managed and operated as part of school-based learning can help extend these networks with benefits for learning, skills, environmental education and policy support.
The schools-based environmental monitoring network that we are developing for London will help understand weather and weather extremes, air and water pollution, flooding and many other aspects of London's environment, whilst also contributing to environmental and STEM education in London's schools through provision of training in the development, maintenance and use of environmental sensors and dataloggers.
As well as addressing a skills gap in environmental technology, EduStation: London will work with the Greater London Authority, City and Borough Councils and other stakeholders to provide valuable data towards the London Environment Strategy supporting Climate Resilient Schools, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems, CoolStreets and London's ambition for net zero by 2030.
How EduStation works
Create: The school or university builds the monitoring station(s) using our low-cost, open source DIY-build designs, in Computing and Technology classes
Use: The stations are used for in class demonstration and to support field-trips, fieldwork and independent investigations (coursework and dissertation) by providing additional data collection capacity and training in environmental monitoring
Collect: The school or university installs and maintains some of the station(s) on a flat roof or other suitable space within the grounds to collect data on weather, climate, air quality and anything else of relevance to the site. The station writes data to freestation.org where it is accessible to all alongside a suite of online tools for in -class demonstration and analysis.
Learn: In Geography and Environmental Science classes, the school uses the data from their station(s), in combination with data from other EduStations around the world
Network: A station in even 1% of schools would be an unparalleled network of environmental monitors. This would help to counteract the global decline in ground based monitoring networks that is occurring at exactly the time we need them the most. Such a network would also cover the (largely urban) areas that host the majority of the world's human population and thus monitor the conditions in which the majority of us live in a way they are just not monitored currently
Longevity: With successive classes maintaining and rebuilding the monitors over time this network can also be one with longevity beyond an individual project
Example EduStation deployments in London
Weather Station at City of London School for Boys in collaboration with City of London CoolStreets programme
Weather station built and ready for deployment at Lady Eleanor Holles School, Hampton. Supported by Royal Society
Weather station at Tiverton Primary School, Haringey, supported by Climate Resilient Schools Programme
Weather station at Harrington Hill Primary School, Clapton, supported by Climate Resilient Schools Programme
