Aguaforence, analyzing water using art and technology:
The micro:bits finally arrived in our office in Mexico City. While we waited for the kitronics kit, we had an idea to do a project in the mexican mixteca, a region with beatiful landscapes but also with a lot of challenge.
For the last year we have been working in a community called Tamazulapam, very famous for it's river and clean water. In the community we work with 25 students,14-16 years old, in differente maker projects and english classes.
Inspired by the serbian artist Robertina Sebjanic and her project Aqua_forensic, we embarqued in an adventure to answer if the famous river was actually clean.
So with the micro:bit, we created 3 experiments to asses the water quality:
- A thermometer to meassure the water temperature, as this could be an indicator for life in the river but also could help us detect if a company is throwing hot process water into the river. In the photo we see one student, dipping the microbit in a plastic bag inside of the a part of the river to meassure temperature.
- A turbidity sensor using the lightsensor of the microbit, as a tool to meassure the PPM suspended in water.
3. A conductivity sensor to meassure the salt and mineral content in water.
In order to control this meassurements, we also used a professional 5 in 1 meter, a PHT-026, which could also meassure pH of each sample 
The students where particularly surprised that in 3 days, without a deeper knowledge in micro:bit besides writing their names on the LED Matrix, they could create tools that allowe them to asses the water quality and also do citizen science.
The results where very conforting, all the levels where compared with a study made by the mexican environmental agency a while ago and they were similar, so there hasnt been an pollutants coming the the river.
| {gallery} River Checking |
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Using the "Baby legs": catch microplastics suspended in the water. |
Waterfall group on field trip: Measuring water inside the canyon's waterfall. |
Learning: programming |
First steps: with micro:bit |
We are still working on a video and the results of this programm, as we finished this intensive workshop yesterday, but I'm still super excited about the reaction of the students and the potential of this project,
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