Classroom

Students Configure Ed Tech to Function in the Great Outdoors

As K–12 schools use science, technology, engineering and math to study bees, teachers get creative with their gear.

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Adam Stone writes on technology trends from Annapolis, Md., with a focus on government IT, military and first-responder technologies.

In Pennsylvania’s California Area School District, students are keeping a close eye on four local beehives to get a better understanding of bee behavior. Superintendent Laura Jacob says caring for the hives supports STEM learning for her K–12 students.

The school is using Raspberry Pi devices, with a connected Raspberry Pi camera running a Linux system through which the kids learn Python. “We put the camera right at the entrance of the beehive and collect visual data,” Jacob says.

However, as students take the technology outside of the classroom, they have two major considerations to ensure the tech continues to support their research.

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Power: “A big challenge is that we’re in the middle of a field” with Raspberry Pi devices and cameras, says Jacob. “How do we get this to run in an outdoor environment, 24/7, without access to an immediate power source?”

Students on the project “had to learn solar technology, so we could have it powered by solar panels. And we added to the code a ‘pause’ feature for the evening, because the bees won’t move at night. This way we’re not burning more energy than we have to, taking photos that we don’t need,” she explains.

Weather Protection: Students also had to protect the tools from the elements. “The solar panel might be waterproof, but the Raspberry Pi devices are not, and those are still connected,” Jacob says. “They had to develop a way to keep the Raspberry Pi in a Tupperware container to protect it from the rain.”

COMPANION ARTICLE: How schools are using STEM to study the decline of bee colonies.

Photo Courtesy of California Area School District