Education technology consultant, Cornelius Krahn, helps Grade 7 students, Mason Adams and Jack Fitzsimonds at Bishop Lloyd Middle School connect a breakout board and program a MicroBit to create a self-watering system for plants as a technology solution for climate change. Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Grade 7 students at Bishop Lloyd Middle School are coming up with climate change solutions for agriculture on the quick.
In just one short lesson, students used their technology smarts to simulate an on-demand watering system for plants grown indoors.
It happened last Thursday under the direction of education technology consultant Cornelius Krahn using MicroBits and Climate Action Kits.
“What we can do with the Climate Action kit is to program it using MicroBits to only water when plants need watering,” explained Krahn.
“What that does is it stops us from using too much water. We’re only watering something on demand instead of all the time or waiting for the clouds to open and rain to pour down.”
Krahn calls the assignment a practical application using coding, so students can build skills to apply to an agricultural setting.
The exercise also fits in with climate change studies taught by Grade 7 teacher Patti Tremmel.
“We’re looking at soil erosion and how we can improve the way we use the land to sustain what we take from the land and hopefully keep it for future generations,” said Tremmel.
She said Krahn is showing her students how to create something unique with technology in terms of watering plants.
In a nutshell, students were tasked with programming their MicroBits to help simulate a pump that would be used to self-water a plant by sticking a tube into a full cup of water to pump into an empty cup.
Mason Adams is one of many students who thought the exercise was really cool.
“I like coding and we went through the processes like the alligator clips (attached to a breakout board) and the programming and the pump,” he said.
“It was really interesting to watch the water flow from one cup to another. I like how we can show how we can water plants a lot easier. It was pretty easy, but it was really fun.”
The youth teamed up with classmate Jack Fitzsimonds who also nailed all the steps in the assignments by trial and error.
“It was pretty simple, but we just had a few mistakes that we had to fix,” said Fitzsimonds who reacted to how it pumped the water.
“I was surprised on how it worked,” he said.
