[IAEP] [support-gang] Quake Catcher Network

[Nicholas Doiron]

I do appreciate your response and thoughts on how it would be difficult to
collect data regularly.  I am hoping to install an XO-accessible weather
station in Uganda this summer. A device will monitor the sensor and
students can collect and post the data on their own schedule.

A large-scale project could start by choosing a simpler project where
students send reports about what they see.  Last December I was on a call
with DigiLiteracy.org and Cornell's volunteer science program.  Cornell is
interested in bird counts from OLPC schools in the US, India, and Latin
America. They also have a bilingual Celebrate Urban Birds program for city
schools. Here is a report about their work with a school in Costa Rica:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/netcommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1693

I would be happy to help in bringing this program back to life.  We have
put digital graphs, cameras, maps, and networks in schools around the
world; it would be amazing if we can connect them with practical science
projects.

Regards,
Nick Doiron

On Sun, April 18, 2010 11:44 pm, Yamandu Ploskonka wrote:
> Provincia San Luis in Argentina is doing an amazing project of
> calculating the carbon footprint of every community in the Provincia, the
> kids go house byhouse interviewing the families on what kind of appliances
> they have, number of lightbulbs, etc.  Classmates running winnows, alas.
>
>
> Please disregard the rest of my response below - I'm into nonsense, no
> need to take any of that seriously, I just find it somewhat quaint I fell
> into that, so I'm leaving it there
>
> as to massive data gathering, something on the lines of weather projects
> could be fascinating, with adequate sensors.  Anyway, so far we haven't
> even been able to figure out even what it is that kids use their computers
> for, which simply would require to see / spider / datamine the Journals.
> To assume that we will be able to have kids regularly upload
> information, and also somehow will we manage to get them previously the
> proper sensors...
>
> Now, with *adequate* data processing, having weather data moving across
> a locality with a couple hundred sensors *accurately* located would be
> terrific, especially cross referencing that with satellite data and doing
> it over a significant span of time.
>
> Same difficulty with anything of this kind.  It's cute this was
> originally sold as something that would use accelerometers in computers,
> but, oh, it turns out you need separate sensors.
>
> I've seen a few very clever Science Fair seismic sensors, but even the
> cheapest ones can run beyond what is practical to consider as individual
> expenses.  And don't forget calibrating them, etc. I would be surprised a
> sensor that actually can give useful information would cost less than an
> XO!
>
>
> On 04/18/2010 09:39 PM, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
>
>> Hi Nick,
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the link to the Science For Citizens site.  Sounds like
>> most of these projects are for the US only.  I wonder if there are
>> similar projects in other countries? Some really nice lessons could be
>> developed for students to do with their XOs with web access.  Does
>> anyone know of others?
>>
>> Caryl