Global climate change is the most important issue humanity has faced. While this has been acknowledged by scientists for years, educating the younger generation is paramount. The importance of teaching scientific data interpretation has recently come to the forefront, with the emergence of polarizing social issues such as vaccination. Similarly, environmental climate change is a contentious concept that requires the understanding of climate data, projections, and mitigation strategies. Yet, a major frustration of educators, scientists and policy makers surrounds the difficulty of getting effective, evidence-based learning approaches into widespread use in the classroom. Implementing inquiry-based activities has in the past proved problematic because of thecomplexity involved for the educator.
Our proposal addresses this problem and the lack of innovative product offering in climate education. The revolutionary EcoWell™ platform consists of hardware, dedicated curriculum material and supporting infrastructure. The EcoWell™ is a small bench-top unit that converts a generic six-well plate into six separate micro-incubators able to mimic aspects of climate change including global warming and the greenhouse effect and terrestrial and aquatic pollution. Using the intuitive touchscreen interface, students will be able to implement automated experimental protocols, download data and follow in-depth instructional videos reducing burden on the educator. The EcoWell™ fully integrated system can be used to grow a range of biological materials under different environmental conditions, in a single low-cost unit and that has numerous applications in a range of core STEM subjects. .
This project was made possible by Small Business Grant Number 1R44ESO36060-01, from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
