Month: February 2021

The science objectives are on the one hand to calculate the directional meteoroid flux in the Earth’s atmosphere, and on the other hand the determination of meteoroid trajectories.

BRAMS (Belgian RAdio Meteor Stations, http://brams.aeronomie.be) is a Belgian network using forward scatter radio techniques to detect and study meteoroids entering the Earth’s atmosphere. It consists of one beacon and 26 identical receiving stations (often hosted at and maintained by astronomy enthusiasts).

The BRAMS network generates a huge amount of data with thousands of meteor echoes detected eachday. Which such large amount of data, it is impossible to process it all ourselves.

The automatic detection of meteor echoes in the BRAMS data has proven to be a difficult problem to solve. Therefore, the BRAMS researchers, in collaboration with Zooniverse team, have launched a citizen science project called the Radio Meteor Zoo (RMZ, http://www.radiometeorzoo.eu/) in August 2016. Since the beginning of the RMZ, more than 8500 volunteers have identified thousands of meteors.

In the framework of this BRITEC project, we want to develop educational material to bring our meteor research into the classroom, and to engage people to contribute to the RMZ.

What is the state of transport-related noise pollution in Flanders ?

In this project students walk through the entire process of an environmental impact study according the DPSIR protocol (‘driving forces’, ‘pressure’, ‘state’, ‘impact’, ‘response’). They measure noise and assess how disruptive is the noise to them personally based on a standardized noise annoyance survey, document their exposure with different techniques and compare the weaknesses and strengths of the different exposure assessment techniques. In this way they get insights in the complexity of environmental impact research.

Students complete a survey, count traffic (amount of vehicles passing by at a given location during one hour), near their homes and/or at school. Noise measurements are performed at the pupils’ dwellings. Using the traffic counts & existing sound maps, combined with the surveys the students completed, they will construct a so called ‘noise annoyance function’. They then discuss the results and debate over the potential measures that can be taken to reduce noise exposure in their daily lives.

What can schools do today to improve comfort and indoor air quality in school classrooms?

In Europe, the building sector accounts for about 40 % of total final energy use (Economidou, 2011). It thereby represents the largest energy use sector.  Our building stock thus harbours enormous potential to save energy, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, in a cost-effective way.  Also school buildings can play an important role, as today they are often not up to standards.

Clearly, there is a need to make school buildings more energy efficient. But at the same time, indoor comfort and air quality are equally important.  As a matter of fact, the promise of energy use and cost reduction alone will not carry needed energy transition.  There is a need for ambitious renovations that reduce energy use and at the same time improve indoor comfort and air quality.  Studies show that thermal comfort and air quality significantly impact  student’s ability to concentrate and perform cognitive tasks.

Based on numerous studies, there is a reason to believe that indoor comfort and air quality are often unsatisfactory.  This project aims to support sensible solutions for this issue, mainly:

• to map the current conditions with regard to comfort and air quality in our schools,
• to raise awareness amongst all stakeholders,
• to reveal cost-effective straightforward measures that schools can take today,
• to aid policy makers in defining sensible comfort and air quality criteria and in putting forward sensible roadmaps to improve school building performance.

There are two sides to comfort and air quality conditions in school classrooms: the actual conditions that we can measure, and how students and teachers perceive them.

The aim of this project is to raise awareness and shed light on the underlying physical phenomena.  With small experiments and some analytical work, students are given insight into their impact on air quality, as well as the impact of heating and ventilation.

It is planned to measure indoor air conditions using wireless battery-powered devices that can measure up to 10 parameters at once.  These parameters include air temperature, relative humidity, VOC’s, CO2, sound, light.  The wireless sensing devices send data to secure online servers by means of the mobile data network.

It is also planned to to perform short surveys, querying students and teachers about how they perceive indoor climate.

The BRITEC project, aiming at introducing research into classrooms through Citizen Science activities, has developed a unique online course focused on integrating scientific activities in STEM teaching. The BRITEC MOOC “A Roadmap to Citizen Science Education” will provide materials and stories of implementation from innovative citizen science education projects. Explore how to combine teachers’ and scientists’ forces from 22 March 2021!

Citizen Science is a relatively new way of conducting scientific research, by enlisting the support of ordinary citizens in the collection and interpretation of data. This approach is a way of engaging pupils in research practices, as well as creating a community for teachers and researchers to exchange on how to bring research into the classroom. Citizen Science Education is based on the assumption that teachers and researchers can find a common ground of discussion and develop practices that are advantageous for both the education sector and the science sector.

Therefore, this course proposes a process of collaboration between teachers and researchers. It provides insights from the perspective of researchers who have supported teachers developing STEM learning scenarios that include scientific activities based on the needs of active research projects. The main objective of this MOOC is to provide instructional design guidelines and the necessary resources so that teachers can develop a learning scenario of their own.

The MOOC will consist of four modules, each of them fostering teachers’ skills and knowledge that are necessary for the design, development and implementation of citizen science education projects. Moreover, the modules will address how to introduce research methodologies and activities in the classroom as a way to engage pupils into STEM subjects.

Register now & join us on 22 March 2021: http://bit.ly/BRITEC-MOOC