As the skies over Illinois turned gray and unhealthy with smoke from Canadian wildfires, canceling many outdoor events and prompting people to stay home, no one saw a silver lining.
Except for Pi-Sui Hsu.
Hsu, a professor in the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment (ETRA), was in Rockford that week teaching a middle school summer camp on air quality and could not ask for a better example of its importance.
Particulate matter (PM 2.5) measurements that typically register around 10 during normal times had soared to as high as 188, Hsu says. Meanwhile, similar data collected by children outside inside and outside their school in unaffected Taiwan was available for examination.
“I would say that was a good education moment for the students,” says Hsu, whose purpose for the camp was to teach concepts of scientific argumentation, including analysis and interpretation of data and how to engage in evidence-based discussions.
Students in Hsu’s “Big Data, Small World” camp, funded by a $40,000 grant from the Rockford Public Schools and aligned to Next Generation Science Standards, entered their numbers into a Google drive also accessible by their young counterparts in Taiwan.
“We asked them to record the temperature, the PM 2.5 level and the location where they collected the data: in a hallway, in a parking lot, on the sidewalk curb close to a major road,” she says. “Students in both countries did similar activities, and then we asked them to compare their data and ask, ‘Why is my number higher?’ or ‘Why is their number higher?’ ”
For those in Rockford, Day One’s topic of “What is particle pollution?” included lessons on fine particles, their effects on health and how to monitor PM 2.5 levels.
Day Two tasked the students with building their own Arduino Particulate Matter Sensors using 3D printers, which also allowed them to begin gathering data at the Rockford Environmental Science Academy (RESA).
By Day 3, they were ready to start writing their arguments based on questions of why big cities are more likely than rural areas to receive PM 2.5 alerts and how urban populations impact PM 2.5 levels.
RESA’s location – a quiet, green and almost forested area on the far west side of Rockford, nestled beyond downtown streets and buildings – made it the rural area for the purposes of this project.
One realization for the U.S. discussion was supplied by Hsu, who grew up in Taiwan.
“We have a lot of motorcycles,” she says. “Sometimes the air quality is not so good, so we are getting into the habit of wearing face masks when we go outside.”
Local discoveries included disparate air quality measurements from the RESA hallway to inside the school’s main office, which surprised the students.
“Unexpected findings like that got them intrigued and thinking hard: ‘Oh! Why? What caused that?’ Our observation showed that because there are many staff running in and out of the office, the number jumped,” Hsu says. “Then, we went out to the parking lot and to the sidewalk, and the number jumped again.”
Four NIU teammates assisted Hsu and Rockford middle school science teacher Rebeccah Coppernoll in delivering the camp:
- Eric M. Lee, co-Principal Investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.
- Riyani Riyani, ETRA graduate assistant.
- Vishweshwar Samba, graduate assistant, Department of Computer Science, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
- Jacob Martinez, graduate assistant, College of Engineering and Engineering Technology.
Fifteen Rockford Public Schools students, about 10 of whom are from low-income homes, attended the camp.
A similar number of students were enrolled at the National University of Tainan Affiliated Primary School in Tainan City, Taiwan, and taught online by Hsu during the middle of the night to coincide with their lunch hour. Funding was provided by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.
Hsu’s initial apprehensions that the topic might exceed middle school scientific knowledge quickly disappeared.
“I was worried that the content would be too challenging for them, but I found that they picked that up very quickly,” says Hsu, including the EPA’s air monitoring website in that category.
“When we showed them to how look for data step by step, they didn’t have any problem,” she adds. “They were able to find the numbers, and they even provided additional information to me: ‘You can find this here. You can find that here.’ ”
Similarly, they impressed her with their care in handling the Arduino boxes. She had feared they might play with, and then drop, the units.
“But they were eager to make them work, so they did a good job carrying the environmental boxes. They took turns use the boxes to monitor and collect the data, and they worked well together because we instructed them how to work collaboratively,” she says.
Most of all, she was surprised with their interest.
“They did a good job engaging in scientific argumentation,” she says. “I was worried they would say, ‘Oh, it’s so boring. Why? Why?’ But they were pretty engaged, and even proposed a lot of new ideas and shared with me why they think human activities affect air pollution.”
Hsu’s passion for teaching the principles of scientific argumentation, something she’s done for years involving everything from alternative energy sources to solar-powered model cars and emerging technologies, is rooted in “training students how to think logically” while moving classrooms beyond lectures.
“I think that’s important in terms of intellectual growth,” she says. “And, if students can argue very well about science, then they can do well in a lot of different subjects, like writing, literacy and social studies as well. If we can involve students in more activities like this, maybe that will get them thinking harder.”
