Equipment: bring some units to pass around and show

Getting Started

In class activity A: Introduction to Public Laboratory

• What is an online research community?
  • compare to online reading community like goodreads.com
• What do we work on together?
  • tools, methods, questions, advocacy
• Why do we do these things?
  • STEM learning and environmental justice outcomes.

In class activity B:

• With support from Marla Greenwald, media specialist, create user profiles on PublicLaboratory.org and sign up for the main mailing list
• Create demo Research Note with tagging for “CHAQ”, “Cypress Hills” and “NYC”

In class activity C: Intro to Air Quality Egg

• Show Kickstarter video. Discuss:
  • how people collaborated online to create this open source product by sharing knowledge, perspectives, and local experiences,
  • how this equipment is being installed globally.
  • history of AQE, show prior project “citizen sensor”, which includes the NYSCI collaboration, and summer camp for middle schoolers.

In class activity D: Introduction to air quality

• What do we mean when we say “air quality”?
• What is the difference between indoor and outdoor air quality?
• What are air quality markers, who thinks those markers are important and why, what can be measured, what kind of technology is used in measuring these markers, how does it work, what kind of data is it (numbers), where is the data stored, what conclusions can be interpreted from this, what can be acted upon, iterate on how can we improve the equipment.
• Give overview of the weeks to come.

Week 1 Assignment

Sign up on publiclaboratory.org: Go to the registration page.

Initial site survey: visit places (can be indoor or outdoor) where you think a sensor unit can be installed.

• What are you noticing about air quality?
  • Identify where you have experienced poor air quality, record relative “hot,” “cold,” “damp,” or “smoky” parts of their everyday environment, and observations were mande with eyes, skin, and/or nose.
• Go out and find where sensors can be set up (need access to a working power outlet).
• Write a new Research Note on publiclaboratory.org (24 hours before next meeting)
• Make sure to include your opinion of all the sites you visited, which might be the best place to install a sensor for 1 week?
• Each potential site should have an image attached (taken with cell phone or other camera). Minimum of 2 sites need to be visited and documented.